


The Avengers' Daughter

by Evangeline_V



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Beginning before Iron Man 1, Ending after The Avengers, Gen, Secret Child, may extend far past The Avengers, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 14:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evangeline_V/pseuds/Evangeline_V
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years before Tony became Iron Man he met and befriended a Stark Industries employee. After a freak accident Tony adopts her young daughter to raise as his own. </p>
<p>Story follows Tony and his daughter's lives from meeting until just after The Avengers.</p>
<p>Rewrite I've been promising for months... or maybe a year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted on Fanfiction.net. I found AO3 and enjoyed the site, so I thought I'd take my work here as well. This does not mean it will not be updated on FF.net, just that it will be found here as well.  
> Rewriting and posting here, you are going to have to reread this, sorry to anyone who finds that frustrating, but here's a hint, the first chapter is double the word count it used to be.

Tony Stark was having a hell of a day; five years in and he still wasn’t used to the swing of running Stark Industries. Truth be told, it had never been Tony’s plan to take the CEO position in the first place, let alone at twenty one just after losing both his mother and father. Howard Stark had been both an engineer and a leader, Tony would be content to stay within a workshop and develop the weapons and various other Stark Industries merchandise. His life has taken him in another direction, and for all of the projects he does personally, there are twice as many tasks that he must perform as CEO.

Today though, was worse than usual for Tony; he woke up late because he was up late making adjustments on the schematics of a sniper rifle for the US Army’s weapons contract and had to rush to Stark tower for a meeting with the department heads, he found a scratch on his favourite car on the way out the door, and to top it off, he just spilt the coffee Pepper had handed him moments before, all over the floor of his office as soon as he walked into the room. Dropping his head to his chest with a low groan, he shuffled his way across the room to his desk. Flopping back into his desk chair, he hit the button to activate his intercom.

“Pepper, I need someone to come and mop up my coffee.” He asked with a heavy sigh. “And a new very large coffee.”

“I’ll send Helena right in, Mr. Stark.” The bright voice of Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts sounded from the intercom’s small speaker. Pepper was a tall, willowy woman with bright copper hair and a no-nonsense attitude that she used to her advantage as Tony’s personal assistant. Nothing would be done anywhere near on time if not for Pepper, Tony was sure.

Tony began to organize all of the paper work that he had let build up over the last few days while he was prepping for the meeting with the department heads, with even less enthusiasm than what he usually had for paper work. The files and folders of information had grown to the point that they were spilling from his inbox into his outbox and down onto his desk proper. Once he finished sorting the stack back into ins and outs he began reading the first folder on the stack.

He was halfway through a budget review for a minor project in the medical research department when a soft knock sounded on the large oak doors of his office. “It’s open.” Tony said without looking up from the paper he was reading. The project head was requesting an increase in budget for their work; Tony wasn’t even quite sure why the file was in his hands to begin with, budget allotments were handled by the department heads.

Helena was a small woman; she barely hit five foot and was the kind of slim that people would say that would blow away with a strong wind. Her size however, was not something you should judge her by, as she was smart as a whip and she had a sharp tongue when needed. When she pushed her way into Tony’s office her held a mop in one hand that she was using to push the steaming wheeled bucket and a large mug of coffee in the other.

Helena had worked for Stark Industries for four and a half years and had quickly become one of the very few who would and could deal with Tony Stark long enough to clean his office. She, like Pepper, was able to take his abrasive attitude and take him down a peg when needed. The pair had a mutual understanding with each other, and had gotten to know each other quite well over the years; they were very comfortable together in their roles of employer and employee. Helena left the mop by the spill and carried the steaming mug to the man behind the desk. “Your coffee, Tony.” Helena said softly with just a hint of an accent as she set the cup down on a coaster.

“Thank you Helena, you are a life saver.” Tony said with a cheeky smile.

Helena let out a laugh and went back to the mop to clean the spill. “I bet you say that to all the cleaning staff.”

As Helena made quick work of the coffee spill she and Tony chatted lightly about his projects and her daughter. Helena was mopping the area around the mess for any leftover splatter when a quick sharp knock sounded on the door of the office. Helena set the mop into the bucket and opened the door to reveal two uniformed security guards and a small child clutching a book nearly as big as she was. The men paid Helena no mind as they shoved passed her into the room and addressed their employer.

“Sir, we found this child in the staff cafeteria, she refuses to speak in English.” The first of the men said.

The second nodded his head and added, “I have no idea what language she’s even speaking.”

Tony had looked up when the knock had sounded and he stared incredulously at the security guards. “Wha-?”

“Toriana! _I told you to stay in the locker room!_ ” Helena said harshly in Dutch.

“ _Mama, there were too many people in there_.” The girl responded. “ _They were watching me_.”

“Um, Helena? What’s going on? Could you explain the situation, in English, please?” Tony asked both exasperated and confused. In all the years he had known Helena, he hadn’t ever seen her speak in any language other than English, though he had known she did.

“Mr. Stark, this is my daughter, Toriana. She was supposed to stay in the locker room and read quietly. She was suspended from school yesterday for getting in a fight with another girl and I couldn’t find a baby sitter to watch her. I have no family and her father isn’t around.” Helena began to wring her hands together nervously. “I promise she will be no problem, she will just read. But I couldn’t leave her at home. She’s only six.”

Tony nodded without saying anything and turned to the security officers. “Don’t you have a patrol route you should be on?” The two men shared a look before exiting the office and letting the door close loudly behind them.

Tony turned back to Helena when the door was shut. “She can stay here with me so long as she is quiet.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark.” Helena said with a large smile.

The girl had her mother’s stature, even at age six it was obvious, but she was nearly completely opposite beyond that. Where Helena had dark hair as straight as can be, Toriana was blonde with huge ringlets hanging around her head in a halo. Helena had dark green eyes that bordered on brown, yet Toriana had ice blue eyes. Helena had a natural tan to her skin, but her daughter had rich creamy white skin with hardly a blemish beyond a dark purple bruise on her left cheek and a black eye.

“ _You will be staying her with Mr. Stark, keep quiet and read your book_. _Try not to bother him; he’s a very busy man.”_ Helena told her daughter seriously. “ _Be good, Toriana, I will be back to get you at five_.”

“ _Okay mama, I’ll be good_.” Toriana answered with a smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. Toriana carried her overly large book to the window that was nearly floor to ceiling with a low ledge and sat down with her book in front of her. She placed herself along the windows so that should anyone else come into the office, they wouldn’t be able to see her unless they were nearly on top of Tony’s desk.

Helena’s two way radio crackled to life as she was paged to a conference room on the floor below to clean up the debris from a meeting that had an explosive ending. Helena had left the room, mop in tow with another quiet word to Toriana to be good for Tony. Tony turned back to his paperwork and hunched over the desk to get it done once she was gone.

A few hours passed unassumingly, the office was silent save for the flipping of pages and the shuffling of papers, and the occasional grumble about having too much paper work from the dark haired man behind the desk. Just before noon Pepper called to ask if Tony wanted lunch he agreed to lunch, but turned down the offer of his usual fare and asked instead for enough to two, of something that was kid appropriate.

At twelve o’clock on the dot, Pepper came into the office high heels clicking sharply on the marble tiled floor carrying a take-out bag from a burger joint not far from the Stark Building and another large stack of files. She placed her burdens on the glass desk in front of Tony and raised her eye brow at her boss. “Lunch for two, child friendly as requested and these are from the investors.”

“She’s Helena’s daughter. Thank you for lunch.” Tony said, but didn’t elaborate further as he tucked the file he was working on away and pulled the paper bag towards himself. Pepper raised her eye brow farther at Tony before left the room when Tony ignored her and turned to face Toriana. “Okay kid, lunch time.”

The small girl looked up from her book and smiled brightly at the man. “Thank you _De heer Stark_.” Toriana set her book down on the ledge beneath the window and made her way to the desk. She climbed onto the chair opposite from Tony. Tony presented the girl with a children’s order of a burger and a small fry along with a small carton of chocolate milk.

The pair ate in silence for a few minutes before Tony asked the question he was dying to ask since he spotted the bruises on the girl. “What happened to you?” Tony grimaced at the blunt question, but he really wasn’t known for his tact.

Toriana’s eyes widened slightly before she blushed and looked at her lap. “I got into a fight with one of the girls in my class. They don’t like me because I’m six, and they’re ten. I was trying to ignore them, but they said that I was a freak and that’s why my _vader_ left me and mama. I hit her, but she’s bigger than me and she hit harder.”

Tony sat stunned for a moment. He had known it to have been the result of a fight with another child; her mother had said as much when she told him that Toriana was suspended. What he didn’t expect was for her to be in a grade so much higher than what she should have been, nor the reason behind the fight. Helena and Tony rarely spoke of her daughter, despite him knowing of her, it was a line they had never crossed; he didn’t even know her name until today. He also knew that her father wasn’t in the picture by no fault of Helena or Toriana. Helena had told him that Toriana’s father’s father was very traditional and very strict, and the man didn’t accept either Helena or Toriana and forced his son to abandon his family.

“Well, she shouldn’t have said that, it isn’t true. You aren’t a freak, just smart. Like me. I skipped grades when I was your age too.” Toriana smiled shyly at Tony and the pair lapsed back into silence as they continued to eat their meals. “What language are you and your mom speaking?”

“Dutch, _Oma_ and _Opa_ came from the Netherlands, so it was my mine and mama’s first language. I learned English at the same time, she learned English in school.” Toriana explained. 

“I see. So what are you reading?” Tony questioned, he figured that if she was here, he may as well know what she was occupying herself with.

“It’s a book on world mythology; I’ve been reading the section on Norse mythology.” Toriana explained between bites. “My mama always tells me stories about Thor and Odin and Asgard.”

Tony nodded and the pair finished their lunches, before they went back to their previous activities, Toriana shyly requested a bathroom break. Tony, panicking buzzed Pepper through the intercom. “Could you, uh, take Toriana to the little girls’ room?”

“Yes Tony, I can take Toriana to the little girls’ room.” She replied sardonically. Moments later the office door swung open and Pepper popped her head in, “Toriana? I’ll take you to the bathroom.”

“Thank you.” Toriana answered and scurried off.

When the pair returned, Tony was once again buried in his work and he barely acknowledged them. The afternoon passed much the same as the morning, though there were small breaks of conversation between the man and child. Toriana would ask Tony to explain the meaning of a word or phrase from the book that she didn’t understand, and Tony would tell Toriana about some of the more kid friendly projects that Stark Industries was working on.

When Helena returned to the office at five o’clock Tony was hunched over Toriana pointing at something on a page of the book before them and quietly explaining the meaning of the word capitulate. When Tony had finished his explanation and stood from his hunched position Helena spoke.  “I hope she wasn’t a bother Tony.”

“Not at all,” Tony waved his hand dismissively. “She read, we ate lunch, chatted and then she read.”

Helena nodded and began thanking the man profusely. “Thank you so much, Tony. I promise it won’t happen again.

“It’s really not a problem Helena, she’s a good kid.” Tony insisted. “If you come into this situation again, just call Pepper to make sure I’m in the office and drop her off.”

 Mother and daughter left Tony’s office minutes later after cheery goodbyes between Tony and Toriana.

Toriana spent the next two days of her suspension in Tony’s office despite Helena’s promise that she wouldn’t be back. The first day had Tony and Toriana back in his office, him still wading his way through the backup of paperwork and Toriana brought in her homework assignments that were due when she returned from her suspension. The second day was split between his office and his workshop six floors below. Lunches were no longer nearly silent, Tony and Toriana would chat about what she was working on and Tony would try to explain what she was learning in more depth than her fifth grade teacher was able to with a class of thirty children.

Over the next few months, Tony and Helena added Toriana to the list of topics they regularly spoke about when they met in the building. Toriana began coming to Stark Industries every day after school let out at 3:30 and doing her homework in Tony’s office at a miniaturized version of Tony’s desk that he had created for her. Instead of being picked up from school by the teenager who lived in the apartment below Helena and Toriana’s, she was picked up by Tony’s driver, Happy Hogan. Within six months Tony went from De heer Stark to omm Tony to Toriana.

 


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All new second chapter, no previously posted content.

The end of June 1997, six months after Tony and Toriana met their schedule changed once again. Summer break was upon the elementary, middle and high schools and Toriana began working with a tutor that Tony arranged to keep Toriana learning through the break at the local library. Marnie Clemson was a university undergrad who was working towards a degree in education for middle school students at a nearby school who jumped at the chance to work with a student through the summer as part of an internship program. Though Tony himself insisted on teaching Toriana’s math and science lessons, Marnie handled everything else; history, English, Spanish, geography and social sciences. Toriana split her holidays between Tony’s office and the branch of the public library closet to the apartment she shared with her mother.

Helena had been hesitant to allow such close contact between Tony - a known playboy who drank too much, partied every night and had as many headlines for his drunken misadventures as he did for his academic accomplishments - and her young daughter, but after a month of evenings spent together in Tony’s office, Tony’s public drinking and partying had all but vanished from the tabloids; there had only been three incidents to make the news in the months spent with Toriana, versus the twenty seven in the previous year. Only once was it before a day that was scheduled as a Tori/Tony day, and after a week of wallowing, pleading and downright begging that Tony wouldn’t admit happened to anyone, Helena agreed to resume days spent in Tony’s office. The more often Toriana was with Tony, the less he was inclined to go out and drink unreasonable amounts of alcohol, least he be hung over when he was to be teaching Toriana about the solar system or algebra.

The close relationship had taken everyone by surprise, no one had expected Tony to take to a child; most actually hoped he wouldn’t have any or be around any at all, and Toriana had never spent much time with men in any sense, save for a male teacher she’d had for kindergarten so really, it was anyone’s guess as to how she would react to Tony anyway. But the pair became as thick as thieves faster than anyone could have guessed, spending as much time as they could together, even if they didn’t say a word to each other for the whole time they were together, both would say it had been a good day.

In the third week of Toriana’s summer holiday Tony asked Helena if he could take Toriana on a fieldtrip and with her permission that Tuesday Tony took Toriana out to the California Science Museum. And Tony, being Tony, rented the entire museum for the day to wander with Toriana without interruption from the public or the paparazzi that would have a hay day if the Tony Stark was spotted with a child. He’d even sent Pepper ahead with non-disclosure agreements for the staff to sign so that they wouldn’t be legally able to tell the press after the fact either.

Toriana and Tony had a private tour of the exhibits by the museum’s curator, Antonio Matteis, a tall well educated man who volunteered as much information about each exhibit he could. The air and space exhibits took up most of the morning, the pair sat beneath a life sized replica of the Wright Glider* chatting about flying and how planes stay in the air while munching on cheeseburgers and fries that Happy brought in fresh from a fast food restaurant nearby. After lunch Antonio led them through the World of Life* section of the museum. Toriana all but demanded that they spend the rest of the day examining every inch of the Life Source, Body Works and Cell Lab exhibits, completely fascinated with the way that humans and cells work.

The next time Toriana spent time in Tony’s workshop there was a perfectly sized desk set up opposite Tony’s main workstation, tucked in beside the kitchen features, just out of view of the door, with a microscope and boxes of slides, interchangeable eyepieces, and bottles of dye, pipettes and petri dishes and other assorted supplies were all neatly put away into shelves.  Two books on beginner’s biology were sitting beside the microscope, with more resting on the shelves beneath one end of the desk. That day Tony showed her how to use the microscope and prepare slides using the thin skin of an onion.

Helena nervously approached Tony in his office half way through July. While they did speak often, rarely did they sit down and half full conversations that weren’t scheduled or brought up by the man in question. It was a day that Toriana was at the library with the hired tutor studying English and history, instead of being holed up with Tony learning geometry or the basics of physics, and Helena had already been though his office to clean it earlier.

“Tony? Can we talk?” Helena questioned. Tony, dressed in his standard overly expensive suit sans tie, was seated behind his desk that was for once nearly devoid of files and folders.

“Of course, what’s up?” Tony asked looking up to Helena and gesturing her to take a seat in front of his desk. He took in her slightly harried appearance and set aside his pen to focus on her completely.

“I wanted to ask you something.” Helena answered as she sat down.

“Okay, are you going to ask?” Tony questioned further.

Helena was quiet for a moment before she began speaking. “My mother always told me that when something important was coming you feel it. I didn’t know what she meant until a few weeks before I met Toriana’s father, and then again before I found out I was pregnant.” Helena paused briefly to gauge Tony’s reaction. The man in question had a slightly amused look on his face at what started to sound like an anecdote from Helena’s childhood, but seemed to be listening intently and showed no signs of impatience. “It’s not just good things though; I knew something was coming before I got the phone call that my father had passed, and my mother. I’ve been getting the feeling that something is coming for the last few weeks, and it hasn’t been a good feeling. I worry, because if something were to happen to me, Toriana has nowhere to go. I don’t have any family, and her father, well, he’s not around anymore.” Tony had a look of growing comprehension on his face, his amusement faded after the comment about it not always being a good feeling, and disappeared entirely after the comment about her parents. “If something were to happen to me, would you – would you make sure that Toriana is taken care of?”

“Helena, nothing is going to happen to you.” Tony started, trying to reassure the woman, but at her grimace, he changed gears, “but if the unthinkable does happen, god forbid, you don’t have to worry about Toriana. I’ll make sure she is always safe and as happy as possible.”

“Thank you Tony,” Helena told him, “it means a lot to me that you will see her taken care of.”

The pair had a short chat about what Toriana was studying at the moment and the potential for another fieldtrip, this time to the San Diego Zoo in the coming weeks before they went back to their respective jobs.

“On the docket today is BEDMAS, the order of operations in algebra.” Tony announced as Toriana shuffled into his office a week after his conversation with Helena. With an unspoken agreement, neither brought up the discussion with the girl, just continued on as normal.

Toriana nodded and headed for her desk. The desk, which had gotten plenty of mention through the building, had also been speculated over in the tabloids when Tony had commissioned a child-sized replica of his own desk and set it up in his office. She set down her bag and pulled out her work books. From the top drawer of her desk she pulled a pencil and eraser. She opened her notebook to a blank page and dated the top as Marnie had told her to.

“Alright, BEDMAS is an acronym that means **brackets, exponents, division, multiplication, addition and subtraction.** ” Tony began his lesson. He was seated in his chair, but turned to face Toriana, who was dutifully taking notes. “And, as I said, it is the order of operations that one follows when doing algebra, and while we won’t cover all of it, order of operations doesn’t change no matter what type of math you are doing. For now we will start with division, multiplication, addition and subtraction.”

While exponents was still ahead of the curve in what Toriana had been learning so far, she’d picked up multiplication and division quickly and Tony felt that it was time to start challenging her with more complex equations, there were only so much to teach her once she’d memorized her multiplication tables up to nine by fifteen.

Tony typed a command into his computer and a small projector flickered to life, the image of an equation appearing on the wall opposite Toriana’s desk. Tony began breaking down the simple equation as Toriana wrote it out as he spoke. The image on the wall adjusted though each step that Tony explained until all that was left was the answer. Tony talked Toriana through a few more practice questions before handing her a work sheet with a set of thirty problems for her to work through that morning.

The rest of their morning passed in a similar fashion, Tony explaining a concept and walking her through a few practice questions before giving her a work sheet. He answered her questions between paperwork of his own. The afternoon was spent similarly with science, that days lesson was on matter. Tony taught a theory lesson on types or matter, their qualities and how they can change. The last half hour of the day Tony spent going over what Toriana was learning with Marnie, and if those lessons were going well.

Tony’s workshop had, at one point, been Tony’s workshop alone. The workshop garage combination room below his cliff side home had been his escape from anyone else. Sure, Pepper, Rhodes and Happy all had access to the room through various codes at the door, but none spent much time there. Generally Pepper was the only one to come down, and she only did so to drag Tony out for one meeting or function or another. Now there was a section of the room dedicated solely to Toriana’s studies, both lessons from him and her independent studies into whatever caught her attention at the time. He could no longer come down to work without being reminded of the golden headed little girl with the bright smiles who seemed to have stolen whatever parts of his heart that weren’t frozen or scarred for herself.

Tony couldn’t imagine what life would be like if he hadn’t met Toriana that day. Or rather, he could imagine to well. He knew that SI wasn’t running nearly as smoothly as when his father was running the company, or even when Obi had taken the reigns before Tony had manned up and taken over. He hadn’t thought he was cut out for being the CEO, just the engineer behind the scenes. He hated paperwork, or any number of other things he had to do as part of that job, and while he could and did delegate anything he could to Pepper, the best assistant anyone could ask for, there was still so much that she couldn’t do. He knew he was losing it. Not only were things being caught up because approval wasn’t going through properly, but he was behind on his own contributions to R&D. he was sure, if not for having met Toriana and letting her presence snap him into shape, he’d have had at least one hospital visit for alcohol poisoning and he would have been voted out my the board members months ago.

Tony grinned to himself and turned from the child’s desk back to his own and got down to work.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Two years passed with relative ease for Tony and the rest of Stark Industries. Helena had become a very close friend to Tony, and he enjoyed being a surrogate uncle to Toriana, spoiling her any chance he got. Tony had paid for Toriana to go to a private school that was better suited to her advancing needs as well as helping keep her out of trouble. She had jumped grades again, and at age eight, she was starting on high school level classes. The little girl often spent hours in Tony’s office, the man in question had even added a desk for the girl to work at, either reading, or asking the elder genius for help with whatever it was that she was working on at the time.

Tuesday March fifth began as any other day began at Stark Tower. Tony was in his office with Toriana, as she didn’t have school that day, so the pair were doing as they did, Tony worked on his paper work while Toriana read. Both silent save for the occasional question from Toriana, or grumble from Tony.  The pair worked for a few hours before breaking for lunch.

“How are your classes going?” Tony asked before stuffing a French fry into his mouth.

“Well, I think.” Toriana answered, “I really enjoy biology.”

Tony pulled a face. “But there are squishy things in biology.”

Toriana laughed brightly. “Yes, but it’s still cool to see how it all works.”

The pair continued to chat about soft topics such as her other classes, projects Tony was working on and what Toriana wanted to get her mother for her birthday throughout their lunch. It wasn’t until an hour after the two settled back into their work when chaos reigned.

Alarms started to ring from every corner of the building and a voice over the PA system was speaking in a robotic voice for everyone to evacuate the building. Tony grabbed his keys and wallet from the desk drawer and picked up his messenger bag after stuffing the more important files into it along with the backup memory for his computer into it. Toriana shoved her books into her back pack before swinging it up onto her shoulders. Tony grabbed Toriana’s hand before he pushed into the hallway outside his office.

The hall was in pandemonium as the two made their way outside the building. People were running and pushing and shoving to get out as no reason was given for the evacuation, and no one had been informed of a drill that day. The stairs were a tight fit as no one wished to risk the elevators in case it was a fire somewhere that they were being evacuated for.  Tony came to a halt outside the building beside Pepper and the department heads and watched as firefighters and police officers poured into the building. Tony turned to Pepper. “What happened?”

Pepper glanced at him, then at Toriana, and then at the building. “There was an accident in one of the chem labs. A chemical agent was spilt and a few people were affected. The agent has the potential to become airborne, so the building was put on lock down, and everyone from the floors above and below were evacuated. Right now, the rescue personnel are going to evacuate the people on the same floor as the lab, leaving the lab sealed. Then after everyone else is out, the lab will be evacuated.”

“What floor was it on, which lab?” Tony asked, seeing as it’s his building and his company, he figured he should get to know who, what, where, when and why.

“Seventh floor, Lab 14.” Pepper said. Tony let out a low whistle, lab fourteen was working on some heavy duty solvents and some of the things they had in there were incredibly poisonous. “We have a list of everyone on the floor, but there is no way to tell who is where on the floor beyond the major players.” Pepper glanced once again at Toriana who was focused on the activity at the foot of the building.

Tony followed the movement and shook his head. “No.”

Pepper closed her eyes and nodded. “She’s somewhere on that floor.”

“But Hel-she works the upper three floors, not seventh! What was she doing there?” Tony nearly shouted, catching the attention of many people around including Toriana.

“Oom Tony? Is everything alright?” Toriana asked when she saw the anger and worry etched across the man’s face.

“Everything will be fine.” He said, but he didn’t sound convincing in the least. Tony paced up and down the strip of grass that the higher ups had gathered on. After a few moments he had calmed enough and came back to stand beside Pepper in a position where he could watch both Toriana and the entrance to the building.

Slowly firefighters and police officers began leading people out into a make-shift clinic to be checked before being sent home, or to a hospital depending on the severity of their condition. Many people passed through the doors, all being delivered by a firefighter to a paramedic before the firefighter would reenter the building to get someone else. Tony watched, scanning every face looking for his friend and with every person who passed that wasn’t Helena, the tenser he became. By the time an hour had passed the seventh floor, minus lab 14 had been evacuated and there was still no sign of Helena.

Frustrated, Tony pulled out his phone and began tapping the screen. “JARVIS, bring up the security footage for the seventh floor. Lab 14.”

“Right away, sir.” The computer responded. A few moments later a live feed from the buildings security cameras was displayed on Tony’s phone’s screen. He could see the main lab and three people; two men whom both worked in the lab, and a very familiar brunette. Tony cursed loudly and tossed his phone to Pepper when she looked at him curiously.

“Oh no.” Pepper breathed. Her free hand raised and her finger tips rested lightly on her lips as she stared at the other woman’s image on the screen.

The two adults gazes’ drifted simultaneously to the eight year old who had lost interest in what was happening around her and had pulled a book from her bag.

Another few hours had passed and Toriana had fallen asleep on the grass, book in hand while Tony and Pepper kept a near silent vigil over both her, and her mother. When Helena was brought from the building she was already on a gurney, oxygen mask over her face and was immediately loaded into an ambulance that darted off as soon as the door were closed.  Tony stared after the ambulance long after it was out of site before he whispered, “What do I do now?”

“You take that little girl to the hospital and wait to hear from the doctors about Helena’s condition. Try not to scare her, Tony.” Pepper answered him solemnly. “I’ll take care of things here.”

Tony stooped to pick up a still sleeping Toriana and left Pepper in charge of the cleanup at Stark Tower. When he reached the street Happy was already waiting at the curb, a sleek sliver sports car with its engine still humming. Happy opened the passenger door and pulled the seat forwards to show the small bench back seat. Tony knelt down slowly and placed Toriana on the seat. When Tony shifted back, Toriana was awake and watching him. “Oom Tony?”

“Toriana,” Tony sighed and looked at the ground for a moment before looking back at the girl. “Your mom was in the lab where the accident happened. They’ve taken her to the hospital. We’re going to go and see her now, okay?”

Toriana nodded solemnly at the man and shifted to put on her seatbelt. 

The man and child made their way silently to the hospital that Helena had been rushed to. Toriana held herself tightly in the back seat of the sports car as it whipped through the streets. Tony’s hands clenched on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white; his eyes unwavering from the road before him.  The silver car streaked around the final corner before screeching to a halt outside the hospital, unmindful of the signs declaring the area to be for emergency vehicles only.

Tony pulled himself from the car and pulled his seat forwards, refusing to waste the time to circle the car to open the passenger door. He wore a pair of dark sun glasses, but if he hadn’t, everyone would have been able to see the anguish in his eyes. Carefully, Tony pulled Toriana from the car and wrapped her in his arms to carry her into the hospital. His pace was steady, and what could be seen of his face was devoid of any emotion or expression, nobody gave the pair a second glance as they made their way in.  Toriana kept her arms wrapped around Tony’s neck and her face buried in the crook while they walked into the hospital.

The main entrance to the hospital was nearly void of life, only a few off duty nurses and volunteers milled around save the lone woman behind the desk at the end of the room.  Tony made his way to the desk that sat beneath a sign which announced reception. An elderly man was already at the desk speaking with the nurse behind it about where his wife was after she had been brought in by an ambulance because of a sudden collapse. The woman tapped away on her computer and gave the man directions to the emergency ward on the floor below.

“May I help you sir?” The nurse asked when Tony stepped up to the edge of the desk.

“Yes, I’m looking for Helena Meijer, that’s M-E-I-J-E-R.” Tony spelt the slightly unusual surname. The nurse once gain began typing on her computer.

 It took a moment for the nurse to look up again, but when she did she asked, “May I ask your relationship to the patient?”

“She’s a good friend, along with an employee. This is her daughter.” Tony answered, becoming more worried by the second. The nurse typed for a few more minutes before wheeling her chair to the other end of the desk to make a phone call. The call itself didn’t take long, but the woman didn’t immediately return to the other end of the desk, instead she made a second call.

“Sir? Ms. Meijer is in surgery at the moment. A volunteer will be here in a moment to bring you to the private OR waiting room.” The nurse told him when she returned to her original spot.

Tony nodded and took a few steps away to wait for the volunteer and clear the way for anyone else looking for directions.

“Oom Tony?” Toriana’s small voice sounded from just below his ear. “Is mama going to be alright?”

Tony was silent for a moment before sighing. “I don’t know, Tori. But the doctors are doing everything they can to make her better.”

A few minutes passed when a scrawny teenage boy came around a corner wearing a red vest that read ‘Hospital Volunteer’ on the right side. The teen stopped just before Tony. “Are you here for Ms. Meijer?”

Tony nodded and the volunteer led him through the halls of the hospital. The OR’s waiting room was on the third floor, just down the hall from the OR’s themselves. There was three waiting rooms, one for general use, anyone who was booked in for surgery, or waiting for someone could wait there, the second was the Family Waiting Room, or so the sign announced, obviously for family of someone whom was undergoing surgery. The third and final room was marked ‘Private’ and was usually unused unless two surgeries were in progress at once and both had large amounts of family waiting. This is where the volunteer left Tony and Toriana with a muttered, “as soon as the doctor knows anything, someone will be by to tell you.”

Hours passed, and Toriana had once again fallen asleep, though this time she was curled up on Tony’s lap, wrapped in a blanket that a nurse had brought in and Tony’s arms. Happy had come and brought the pair a meal which Pepper had ordered, but neither had eaten, or even opened the bag.

The initial spill had occurred at twelve minutes after two in the afternoon; Helena was rushed to the hospital at three fifty-three. Surgery to attempt to remove burned flesh and reopen her airways began at four eighteen and the doctor emerged from the operating room at eleven fifty-six. Dr. James Dalton was the Head Surgeon at the largest hospital in the area and he had done countless surgeries, many of which had worse injuries to begin and the patient survived, but Tony knew from the way the doctor carried himself, and watched the floor that this was not going to be a welcome announcement.  When the man reached the doorway to the private family waiting room where Tony sat, he slowly brought his head up and asked, “Family of Helena Meijer?”

Tony stood and carefully set Toriana down on a large cushioned bench. The girl was still sleeping peacefully and simply curled herself tighter under her blanket. Tony walked to the door and nodded his head, motioning to speak outside. The men exited the room and closed the door silently. Tony took his stance beside the door at an angle from which he could still see Toriana sleeping, should she wake.

The doctor held out his hand. “Doctor James Dalton.”

Tony shook the other man’s hand firmly. “Tony Stark. How’s Helena?”

Dalton looked to the floor. “We did all that we could, but the burns to her trachea were more than anticipated. She lost a lot of blood when we attempted to remove the burned tissues from her body, along with those in her throat. Her heart stopped twice, the first time we were able to restart it easily, the second time we tried for a long time before we were forced to call it.”  The doctor looked up to Tony’s face in time to see it crumple. Tony wasn’t looking at the doctor though, he was looking through the slim window at Toriana who slept on unawares that her life had just changed irrevocably.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Fifteen minutes of speaking with the doctor about specifics and making mental notes to make arrangements for Helena’s funeral and burial later, Tony returned to the waiting room were Toriana slept on, oblivious to the world around her. The dark haired man wasn’t sure how long he stood just inside the door before he moved to the seat he had been waiting in and slumping into it. He well and truly didn’t know how to go about waking Toriana to tell her that her mother, the only parent she had ever known, wasn’t coming home again. How did you tell an eight year old that? Hell, how did you tell anyone that? He could remember being in his lab surrounded by projects, Dum-E, You and Butterfingers whirling around making a nuisance of themselves when Obadiah Stane coming in and shutting down his music. He can still hear Obadiah’s speech about loss and grief that he gave that he finished with “I’m sorry, your parents were killed in an accident.” It didn’t take much more than the memory of running away and hiding for four months after that to convince Tony that he couldn’t take that approach.

It was a while later before Tony silently made his way to the bench and knelt down beside Toriana’s head and softly brushed the hair on her face behind her ear. He had always been a bit fascinated with Toriana’s long blonde curls. They were so unlike her mother’s pin-straight black hair that he just couldn’t understand how she happened. And that was before you took note of her eyes. Green is the dominate gene, so her blue eyes should have been impossible.  Whoever her father was, he sure had strong genes to have obliterated Helena’s so well.

 Minutes ticked past without consequence as Tony sat running his fingers through his own hair, and her curls while Toriana slept on. The nearly thirty year old man didn’t know how long he sat there, watching the little girl he had come to love, so much more strongly than he’d every expected to love anyone, sleep before she shifted slightly and woke. Bleary blue eyes stared unfocused at Tony for a moment before the young girl sat up and stretched before running her fingers through her sleep mused hair. It took a minute for Toriana to wake enough for her eyes to focus properly on Tony enough to truly see him and take in the visible grief on his face.

His eyes were rimmed red and bloodshot, his hair a mess from running his fingers through it a time or two too many, and his mouth was set into a grim line that left no room to doubt the news he had to tell her. 

Neither spoke, but no words were needed; both knew without speaking what had transpired. Moments went by before Tony’s eyes slid closed and his face dipped to the floor, unable to continue to look into the dull blue eyes that were normally so bright. Toriana’s slight frame began to quake in her spot. Her body tensing and releasing in such quick succession that she shook the entire bench beneath her with each movement, despite it being bolted to the floor. Suddenly Toriana froze, she didn’t breathe or blink or anything for a heartbeat.

Tony, who had reopened his eyes and looked at the girl who was trembling fiercely, sucked in a large breath preparing himself to be deafened by Toriana’s cry, or thrown off balance by her weight slamming into him in his prone position.

Neither happened, but nothing would have prepared him for what did happen.

As Toriana relaxed and let out a loud pained cry, small bolts of electricity arched across the air around her, hitting the sockets in the walls and the lights overhead. The power crackled and sparked in the air around Toriana for no more than a breath before it faded into nothing as her cry died on her lips. The whole hospital seemed to be still for a moment before everything went dark. No lights in the hall ways, or beeping of heart monitors down the hall.

Stunned into a state of immobility, Tony stared at the little girl until the emergency generator kicked in and Toriana began to sob in earnest. Shaking himself, Tony reached forwards and gathered the girl into his arms and began rocking her while murmuring soothing words into her hair.  He knew for a fact that nothing he could say to do would truly make her feel any better in that moment, but just being there would do at least a bit he hoped, so he held her in silence. Toriana clung to Tony as if her life depended on it as she sobbed uncontrollably into his normally pristine designer white shirt, soaking the material with the tears that streamed from her eyes.

Tears leaked their way from Tony’s clenched eyes and dropped onto Toriana’s blonde head as he held her. Slowly her sobs quieted and turned to sniffles before Toriana fell into a fitful sleep. 

With a heavy sigh Tony carefully arranged the sleeping girl back onto the cushioned bench and stood. Tony began gathering the few things the pair had with them and prepared to leave the hospital. Once he was ready, he carefully picked up Toriana from the bench and arranged her to rest her head on his shoulder so she could continue to sleep on the walk to the car and, if he was lucky, the ride home as well.

Just as Tony turned to the door just as it opened to reveal a slightly plump middle aged woman with poorly dyed auburn hair and an ill-fitting, clearly cheap navy blue pant suit.  The woman stood in the door way holding a clip board and a pen, with a purse strung over her shoulder, and an I.D. badge hanging around her neck proclaiming her to be Margaret Adler, a social worker from Child Protective Services. Tony stared at the woman unable to speak, how the hell could they be here already? Helena couldn’t have been _gone_ for an hour, yet here she was, with a Holier-Than-Thou smirk on her face as she stared right back at Tony.

“Mister Stark?” The woman asked, but she didn’t wait for the aforementioned man to respond before announcing, “My name is Margaret Adler, I’m the worker assigned to Toriana Meijer’s case. I’m here to take her to a girls’ home until we can find her a foster home. If you could be so kind as to wake her, we will be out of your hair and you won’t have to worry about this anymore.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Tony told her and tried to walk around her.

“You don’t have a choice, Mr. Stark.” Margaret told him snidely. “Ms. Meijer had no living relatives, so her daughter is now a ward of the state until such a time as a Will is produced or she comes of age.”

Tony scowled at the woman before shifting his grip on Toriana and retrieving his cell phone from the pocket of his pants. He sent a second dirty look at the social worker who was still blocking the doorway with an unimpressed look on her face. Tony turned his back on the woman and brought the phone to his ear, speed dialing number three already ringing.

A brief conversation that consisted of Tony only uttering one sentence that baffled Margaret. Tony didn’t acknowledge the woman in the door, simply stuffed his phone back in his pocket and wrapping his once again free arm around Toriana’s body and burying his nose in her hair. Twenty minutes passed silently, Tony shifted from foot to foot slowly rocking from side to side.

A throat cleared from the hall, Margaret hadn’t moved out of the doorway. The noise drew both of the rooms wakeful occupants attention to a man approximately fifty years old, greying hair and keen brown eyes that watched Tony shift his relaxed stance into one of forced nonchalance and Margaret pulled herself up into a stiff straight backed stance. The man entered the room, rested a briefcase on one of the small side tables available and opened it. Inside were the expected things, a yellow paged lined legal pad, pens, a few file folders, one of which he extracted from the rest, opened and handed the contents to the woman who was scowling at both men.

“This is Helena Meijer’s Last Will and Testament. If you flip to page three you will see that it lists those who Ms. Meijer elected to gain guardianship of her daughter. You will note that Mr. Stark is the first on the list.” The man, Willard Scott had been Howard Starks’ family lawyer for years before his death, and Tony had kept him on after as his own, so when Helena needed to write her will, he had sent her to Willard. “Now, that is a copy, so you are more than welcome to keep it and go over it in detail later, but at this time, I believe that Mr. Stark should take the young Miss Meijer home.”

The man reached into the inside breast pocket of his sports coat and retrieved a business card. He stepped forwards once again and gave the card to Margaret. “If you have any questions, you can contact me at my office.”

The lawyer closed and locked his briefcase and led Tony past Margaret who was flicking her eyes from the Will to the business card and back with a sour look.

The next few days were hectic for Tony and Pepper. Two other employees were killed in the accident, six people were hospitalized with major injuries, four more had been taken to hospital and released that day, and five people had injuries from being trampled in the rush to escape the building and all needed various things that needed to be done, and that wasn’t including press coverage and conferences, planning a funeral and burial, all that needed to be done while watching over an eight year old who just lost her mom.

Pepper handled as much as she could without Tony’s presence so that he could focus on planning a funeral and watching Toriana, but they traded places when Tony needed to address the masses as the CEO of Stark Industries.

He barely made it through the first press conference when one of the journalists present asked for the names of those who had been killed as a result of the accident. With a shuttered breath Tony had been able to force out the three names. Doctor Karen James, the lead on the project and her primary assistant, Carson Lock, a twenty four year old with a master’s degree were the two other deaths, both names were hard to say, but when he had to announce Helena’s name he stuttered over her first name.

Especially bad was when the journalists pushed on the subject, and about the fact that Tony stuttered over Helena. More than one person made unsavory remarks about her in their questions, all basically asking if she was one of his one night stands. His fierce defense of Helena’s character shocked everyone present into silence. He closed the conference quickly after that, saying that all three lost would be sorely missed by their loved ones and by Stark Industries, and that a combined memorial service for the trio would be held later that week.

Five days after the accident Tony, Toriana and Happy flew from LAX to the Philadelphia International Airport. Helena’s parents had settled in a town just outside Philadelphia when they came to the US from the Netherlands and were buried in a local cemetery. Helena’s Will stated her wish to be interred with her parents.

The day before there had been an open memorial service for the three lost at Stark Industries. Toriana had attended with Tony, she stayed almost glued to his side for the whole event except when he went to the podium to give a speech about the dead and the impact the incident would have on Stark Industries as a company. There had been speakers from the families of both James and Lock, as well as coworkers that knew at least one of the three. After an announcement that Stark Industries would be donating money to help those effected.

The Glenwood Memorial Gardens Cemetery was a large place, though the years between the death of Helena’s parents and her own demise made finding a plot close by difficult. In the end, Helena was laid to rest two rows away from her parents beneath a small tree. There wasn’t a headstone there yet, though Tony had thrown enough money at the man hired to make the headstone that it would be installed within the week.

There was a small burial ceremony at the grave site, Tony and Toriana taking turns placing flowers on the casket before it was lowered into the ground.


	5. Chapter 5

The weeks following that day both sped by and dragged on forever to Tony; he had so much to do, and seemingly no time to do any of it. He had his lawyers working night and day to make sure he could keep Toriana in his care, seeing as he technically kidnapped her from the hospital. Pepper and Tony had been running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to simultaneously keep Stark Industries running after the incident, as well as sort out all of Helena’s affairs, and keep Toriana from completely shutting down.

Tony hadn’t said a word to anyone about what he witnessed at the hospital. He was doing everything in his power to keep Toriana, which included not doing or saying anything to anyone that could jeopardize his chances. Making himself sound crazy would top that list, as he was sure that no one would believe, let alone understand what had happened.

Toriana herself hadn’t said much of anything since that day. She only spoke if spoken to, and only if that was completely necessary, and when it was, she would say the bare minimum to get her point across before falling silent once again. She moved around the house like a wraith, not truly conscious of the world around her. She would even stare at people when they spoke to her as if they were speaking some foreign language that she had never even heard of before.

This worried Tony far more then he let himself show. Toriana had never been one to sit by and take what happened, she always would fight back and fight with everything she had, so to see her with so little fight in her scared Tony. He spent many late nights researching depression in children and warning signs he needed to keep an eye out for.

And thus lead to Tony, Pepper and Toriana standing in Helena and Toriana’s apartment home exactly three weeks to the day of the incident. The apartment was clearly the home of someone who liked things clean. There was a slight layer of dust around the space, but that was only from the lack of life in the apartment over the previous weeks, than any other cause.  Everything seemed to have, and be in, its place as Tony looked around.

Tony and Pepper decided that they would come and pack up anything major that Toriana may need or want in the near future and take it with them back to the house. Everything else was going to be packed later that day by professionals and stored away for whenever Toriana asked for it.

“Well,” Pepper clapped her hands together, “let’s get to work. We only have a few hours before the movers get here to pack up the rest.”

And with that, the trio set to work. Toriana disappeared into her own room with a few boxes and began packing her books, what few toys she had, and whatever else caught her attention. Pepper began on the living room, packing up photo albums, and pictures from the wall and mantelpiece. Tony ducked into Helena’s bedroom and began pulling her personal items from her nightstand drawers, and the boxes from the top of her closet.

They had been working for an hour maybe, when Tony reached for a box on the top shelf in the closet only for it to topple and dump its contents on his head. Thankfully, Tony was only rained on by papers and small knickknacks that looked to have not seen the light of day in years. The large book thumped to the ground beside him without touching him, just barely missing the toes of his left foot.  Pulling the box with him, he knelt and began to repack the box without much thought. That is until he came across a small picture of Helena and a rather large man who had his arms wrapped around what was clearly Helena’s very pregnant stomach. 

Flipping the photograph over, he found Helena’s neat scrawl declaring _‘Helena and Thor, eight months pregnant’_. Shocked, Tony stared at the writing without really seeing it for a few minutes. He had found a picture of Toriana’s father! Going back through the things he had already placed back in the box he found more pictures showing Helena in varying stages of pregnancy, as well as family portraits with a tiny baby Toriana. The papers were a mixture of love notes between Helena and this Thor fellow, Toriana’s birth certificate that named Thor Odinsson the father, drawings of fantastic creatures that surely never existed, and tickets to various attractions and films. Tony flipped through them slowly as he once again replaced them in the box, he was sure that these would be things that Toriana would want when she was ready. A brief though to why Helena had kept everything pertaining to Toriana’s father boxed up in her closet instead of where she could access it to show Toriana passed through Tony’s head but he let it go. 

When everything else was back in the box, Tony picked up the book from the floor and read the title: _Norse Legends and Myths Retold by Ingrith Bjer._ Confusion clouded Tony’s features. He knew that Helena wasn’t much interested in literary persuites, she was quite open about her interests in all the years they’d known each other, but there would be no reason to hide one of Toriana’s books. He opened the cover of the book to the first page in which he found a letter addressed to Helena and a small note written on the inside of the front cover of the book.

The inscription read, ‘ _To my Helena, a book I found of a little of my history here on Midgard. I hope you look on this with the same fondness I look at you with. Thor.’_ It was then that Tony noticed the markers on the pages sticking out of the top of the book. He flipped to the first one to see the story of the All Father, Odin; the next was about his son, Thor, and then various other myths that all centered around one God or another from a place called Asgard.

Flipping the book closed, Tony opened the letter.

_Dear Helena,_

_This is something that I should be telling you in person, and not in a letter, but I find myself without the courage to face you with these tidings._

_It seems that since coming to Midgard again, and meeting you, I have been remiss in my duties in Asgard and the All Father is not happy with me. I have been here nearly constantly for almost three years. Toriana, our beautiful little girl, has shown no signs that she has inherited any power of Asgard, and thus I cannot convince my father to allow me to remain here._

_I’ve told you time and time again that Asgardian children exhibit any power they possess nearly from birth, and yet at eight months, Toriana has shown nothing. This leaves me with the feeling that she has not a power. And while that does not make me feel any different towards her, it does mean that I cannot stay any longer._

_My love for you shall never fade, and I shall have Heimdall watch over you and Toriana always._

_Be safe, and know that I shall always be but a bridge away._

_Thor, Son of Odin._

Reeling, Tony shoved the book into the box and closed it. There was no way that was true! The Norse god surely didn’t exist, let alone come and father a child only to leave again! No! Tony shook himself and picked up the smaller box. Stuffing it into a larger box on the bed that held various other things he had picked up from the room, he sealed that box as well. Tony made quick work of filling a third box in Helena’s bedroom before he brought them out to the front door and stacked them there. All the while he was reasoning to himself that ‘Thor’, if that was his real name, wasn’t sane by the end of the relationship and found himself homeless and wandering or in a mental institution.

Pepper, who had been in the kitchen packing up what had once been stuck to the fridge with magnets, looked over at her boss, “Are you alright, Tony?” she asked. He seemed pale and shaken to his longtime employee.

“What?” He asked, surprised, when she spoke, “oh, yeah. I’m fine. How are things in here?”

“Good. I think I’m just about done with the important things. Everything else can either be donated or go into storage,” Pepper explained with a gesture to a stack of sealed boxes and a single open one just to her right.

Tony nodded his head and turned to face the small hall that led to the bedrooms and bathroom of the small apartment. “Has she come out at all since we’ve been here?” His voice was soft, as if asking loudly might bring her bounding from the room.

“No, but I checked on her a while ago. She was packing her books.” Pepper answered as she went back to her task. “Why don’t you go see what she is up to?”

Tony nodded, despite knowing that Pepper wasn’t looking at him, and made his way to the second bedroom of the apartment. The small hallway was adorned with nails where pictures had once hung. The pale cream walls showed no signs of wear, as if the paint was fresh. Tony lightly knocked on the door at the end of the small hall before pushing his way into the light purple bedroom.

Toriana had one box pushed against the wall beside the door, full of books, and she stood placing the last few from her shelf into a second box. A third box stood open with clothes and toys stuffed haphazardly into it, sticking out awkwardly. Tony’s lips lifted in a half smile, even as out of whack as she had been, she still treated her books with the utmost care.

“How’s it going in here?” Tony asked lightly.

“Fine. Nearly done now.” Toriana responded without looking up from the books.

“Do you need a hand?” Tony asked. He knew he was pushing his luck, after getting a verbal answer to his first question, but he couldn’t help himself. Toriana shook her head and turned back to her shelf to grab the last book, a copy of the same book Tony had found tucked into the box in Helena’s bedroom. Tony sucked in a sharp breath as he stared at the well-worn cover. The book clearly had been read countless times, probably as bedtime stories for the girl holding the book.

Tony had to be going around the bend, he knew he must. First he was seeing things at the hospital, and now he was considering the possibility that the Norse God of Thunder existed and fathered the child before him. He was definitely going crazy, there was no other explanation.  Pulling himself from the chaos inside his own head, Tony picked up the box by the door and made his way back to the front door.

The last of the packing took very little time for the trio, and they were soon on their way back to Tony’s with the stack of boxes in a second car with Happy behind the wheel. A quick ride had them at home and soon enough the boxes were neatly stacked in the spare bedroom in Tony’s home.

Every box but one that is.

Tony had smuggled the box that held Helena’s hidden box into his own room. He refused to admit to himself that he was still stuck on the possibility that the man in the photographs, the man that was clearly Toriana’s father was Thor, Norse God of Thunder, son of Odin, the All Father. There was no way he would admit that, no. He took the box so that Toriana wouldn’t find that her father had lied to her mother when he left. He nodded to himself shakily, _yeah, that’s it,_ he thought.

And yet, come midnight that night Tony found himself with the numerous screens in his room all on various sites depicting the myths and legends revolving around Thor and the rest of the Norse gods. He had cracked open the box and had ordered everything as chronologically as he could, going by the few dates on items and the look of the papers.

The dates stretched from early 1988 to the date on the last letter “Thor” wrote, being September 12th 1991, just a few weeks more than eight months from Toriana’s birth date of February 3rd 1991\. He knew them all by heart, having read them so many times, but he still kept looking for something he may have missed to definitively prove one way or the other whether this is lunacy or not.

 

 

Months passed. Tony was granted custody of Toriana through a series of unannounced visits from Margaret Adler, a hearing and more help from Pepper and Willard Scott than Tony really wanted to remember. Stark Industries pulled out of the media backlash of the incident and after weeks of non-stop research, Tony had finally put thoughts of Toriana’s father out of his head. Toriana had opened back up again slowly, and was well on the way to being the same girl she had been, or as close as she could get after such a changing experience. Life had found a rhythm again and it was easy for the man and child to go with the flow for as long as they could.

Obadiah Stane had taken up more of the responsibilities of running the company leaving Tony more time to spend with Toriana, quickly becoming the dad she never had.  The pair did projects together; everything from seeing how long it took for green beans to grow, to tinkering with electronics and breaking down and rebuilding the engine of many of Tony’s cars.

Things were seemingly going swimmingly for everyone involved. That is, until the day that Toriana came home from school in a foul mood after some of the other kids in her class began picking on her for being an orphan.

Toriana stomped into the house, bypassing Tony in the kitchen and disappearing up the stairs and into her bedroom. Happy stood near the door with Toriana’s book bag, which had been left in the back seat of the car. The men looked at each other silently for a moment before Tony looked to the stairs and Happy set the bag down.

“She’s been like that since I picked her up,” Happy explained, “Something must have happened at school, but she wouldn’t talk about it.” Happy shrugged. “I even offered to stop for ice cream.”

Tony nodded and made his way up the stairs after dismissing Happy for the night. Upon reaching the second floor of the house, Tony could hear the sounds of Toriana moving around in her room, thuds of things being thrown and hitting the floor and walls sounding even louder than her stomped footsteps. Tony made his way faster; not so much that he worried about having to replace anything in the room, but about Toriana hurting herself on something she broke.

Throwing open the door, Tony shoved his way into the room only to freeze completely. Toriana wasn’t throwing anything. At least, not with her hands. She stood trembling in the center of her room, arms wrapped tightly around her torso as a fierce wind whipped around her. Sparks of electricity snapped and crackled around the room, a tiny electrical storm was contained in the room.

Without concern for his own safety, Tony threw himself into the miniature storm and wrapped himself around his adopted daughter. In his mind, better he be hurt then her.

It took hours to fully calm Toriana enough to get the story of what had happened out of the girl, though the sudden contact with the man had shocked her out of conducting the storm.

From then on, Tony knew he wasn’t crazy, and neither was Helena nor Toriana’s father. It was all true, it had to be. There was no way this was a fluke like he had convinced himself what he saw at the hospital was. 

 


	6. Chapter Six

After the shock of having a child with powers, Tony set about finding a way of teaching Toriana to control it. It started with research, though it didn’t really pan out. Most of what Tony did find wouldn’t apply because he wasn’t trying to get her to repress it and the rest was geared towards mutants and he wasn’t sure any of that would really help given that Toriana was, at least half alien, if not half god. At least it gave them a place to start, or it would, as soon as Tony explained what was going on. Although, he wasn’t quite sure if the Malibu mansion was the place to be exploring these abilities either, but he could deal with that after they were both on the same page.  
As far as Toriana knew she had caused a windstorm in her bedroom and knocked the power out at the hospital with no explanation. She and Tony hadn’t talked about the hospital incident at all after, each for their own reasons. Tony because he thought he’d been going mad and Toriana because she was avoiding speaking to anyone about anything at the time.   
The day after Toriana blew apart her bedroom Tony kept her home from school and sat her down at the dining table to talk. It was already midday when they sat down so they ate lunch before Tony brought out the box he’d squirreled away to his bedroom when he’d first brought Toriana home. Instead of the chaos that the box had been at the time it was now neatly organized, chronologically so that the first thing he pulled out of the box was a movie ticket stub dated February 10th 1988.   
The pair slowly made their way through the box, Tony would take out an item and present it to Toriana and tell her anything he’d been able to find on it.   
After the movie stub was a picture of a young Helena that he’d been able to prove was taken outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She was grinning at the camera wildly, her hair was being blown around by the wind but it was clear that she didn’t mind. The next item was a receipt from a fast food restaurant with a doodle of some sort or animal on it. Two more photos of Helena followed, a Polaroid Helena on a park bench and one of her stretched out in the grass as if to make a snow angel in the spring.   
Tony hesitated before taking the next picture of the box. It had been in a frame when he’d found it, but the glass was gone and the frame itself was cracked at chipped so he hadn’t bothered to put it back after he’d scanned it. It was the first picture that Thor appeared in, and even if Tony hadn’t had the rest of the box of information to go on, it was all too clear that he was Toriana’s father. The smiling man in the photograph shared his eyes, shape and colour with his daughter and that was only the beginning of the similarities. He was a monster of a man, easily six and a half feet tall and quite possibly the most muscle bound man Tony had ever seen. So far it seemed as though Toriana had taken after her mother in terms of physique, despite how much she looked like her father. After a deep breath he handed the slightly worn picture to Toriana.   
Toriana didn’t seem to notice the pause between the pictures, she had been caught up in taking in every detail of the pictures of her mother that she’d never seen. Taking the new picture from Tony, Toriana sucked in a sharp breath through her nose and held it as she took in the sight. Helena was tucked into Thor’s side, his arm thrown over her shoulder, holding her close. Her eyes were sparkling at whoever was taking the picture of the pair, even as she tried to smother her smile behind one hand. Thor was open, in his posture and in the look of happiness on his face; it was like he couldn’t imagine another place he could be in that moment. Toriana lightly ran her index finger over the shape of Thor’s face before flipping it to read the inscription on the back. Helena and Thor, June 1988.  
The rest of the box was filled with more pictures, drawings, love notes and paper souvenirs from things that Helena and Thor had done together over the course of three years. Included were pictures of Helena while she was pregnant, most of them featured Thor, though not all of them. The few that weren’t including Thor seemed to all have been taken within Helena and Thor’s home, so Helena likely didn’t keep them with the rest of the family pictures because Thor took them. There were also pictures from just after Toriana’s birth with Thor cradling a swaddled baby in his massive hands. The love in his face was undeniable and left Toriana’s stomach turning. She couldn’t imagine what could make a man who was so obviously in love with his family leave them.  
When Tony reached the bottom of the box he was left holding the beat up copy of Norse legends that Thor had inscribed for Helena and the letter he wrote her when he left. Tony wasn’t sure which order to give them to her, so he tucked the letter back inside the cover and handed the book to Toriana carefully.  
Toriana ran her hands over the spine and front cover of the book, tracing the scars in the stiff board and paper and the lettering of the title.   
“I have a copy of this upstairs.” Toriana stated quietly. “I think it’s the same edition.”  
“I know,” Tony agreed. “This one is special though, open the cover.”  
Toriana carefully opened the book, as if it was hundreds of years old and could fall apart with the slightest of movements and read the words Thor wrote on the inside. ‘To my Helena, a book I found of a little of my history here on Midgard. I hope you look on this with the same fondness I look at you with. Thor.’  
“He can’t really think he’s the Norse god of thunder.” Toriana’s words were phrased as a sentence but her tone was questioning.  
“Read the letter.” Tony told her, tilting his head to gesture to the folded paper resting below the note written in the book.  
Toriana took a moment to read the letter. “He does, or did, honestly believe he was a god.”  
“I don’t think he was lying or mistaken, Toriana. Think about what you can do.” Tony scrubbed his hands through his hair and over his face. “You controlled electricity and overloaded the hospital. You caused a windstorm in your bedroom.”  
Toriana was silent for a long time. She didn’t look at Tony but stared at the table in front of her, the book and memorabilia pushed aside. Tony didn’t interrupt her thoughts, he knew what it was like to be thrown out of a deep thought by someone speaking, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off her or his hands from shaking. He didn’t know how she was going to react.  
On one hand she could lose control of her power again and create a windstorm in the house, or knock out the power or any number of things that he hadn’t seen yet. On the other she could completely break down and nothing could happen beyond hysterical sobbing. And although Tony was getting better at dealing with tears from Toriana, he’d much rather avoid them when he could. Dealing with tears from anyone would never be on the list of things that Tony would want to do.  
Instead Toriana surprised him again by standing up with a determined look on her face. “I need to learn how to control this, will you help me?”  
“Always.” Tony answered immediately.   
Finding someone to help Toriana learn how to control her power was no easy task, but Tony was as determined to get it done as he ever was with anything else. Discrete searching led Tony through a frighteningly large number of useless leads and a very few that just might pan out into actual help.  
Vetoing anything that pushed for repression or elimination of powers and being leery of the Mutant focused side given their leeriness of anyone who isn’t a Mutant left very few options available.   
There was however one Mutant focused group that Tony kept on the list as he had found great things written about it. A school in upstate New York, not too far from one of his own homes.   
Instead he first contacted a woman who lived a few hours north of Malibu who taught meditation and focus to control any power they possess. The meetings between Toriana and Lorelai lasted a grand total of four hours before Toriana stormed out and refused to see her again.   
In quick succession there was two more women and a young man, none of whom lasted more than a week a most, and Toriana was no closer to controlling her abilities.  
When the fifth person struck out Tony was at his wits end with finding someone to help. He was running out of options and Toriana was losing what little grip on her power that she had. After a spontaneous rain storm that only covered the pool on the Stark property the doorbell rang and on the outside stood a young woman with striking white hair, smooth dark skin and deep eyes.  
In an odd turn of events Tony answered the door himself after watching Toriana stomp off to her room.   
“Can I help you?” Tony questioned.  
“No, but I can help you Tony Stark.” The woman answered. “If you’d let me in, we can discuss.”  
“I don’t even know who you are.” Tony told her while he pulled the door closer to being closed behind him to block the view into the house.   
“I am Ororo Munroe, I work at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. You’ve been looking for help with your charge.” The woman smiled slightly, though the look made her look more uncomfortable than anything else.   
“How could you know that?” Tony demanded.   
“I’m more than happy to explain, once we are inside.” Ororo insisted.   
Tony pursed his lips and glanced around the front yard a few times before huffing and nodding. “Fine, come in.” The man pushed the door open and gestured the woman inside.  
Once the pair were in the foyer and the door closed Tony hesitated before leading the way into a formal sitting room near the front of the house. He gestured for Ororo to sit while taking a seat himself. The pair sat in silence for a few minutes, each assessing the other but making no move to speak first.  
Eventually Tony was frustrated with sitting quietly and asked again, “how did you know I was looking for help for Toriana?”  
“Charles Xavier keeps a look out for people looking for help. And while your charge is not a mutant, he believed that I would be able to help her learn to harness her power.” Ororo explained. “She and I have similar abilities.”  
Tony nodded mutely, watching as Ororo crossed her legs and raised a single eyebrow.   
“Why only approach us now?”   
“We felt it would be better for you to feel like you had tried your options first.” Ororo told him. “If we had approached you when you first began looking, we felt like there would be a high chance that you would turn me away instead of letting me help.”  
Tony sighed. “You were probably right. I even wasn’t sure if you would even help her.”  
“We help anyone who needs it, mutant or not.” Ororo insisted. “We’re persecuted for being what we are, we need to do what we can to combat the stigma behind being born mutant.”  
“I understand.” Tony admitted. “Would you like to meet her?”  
“I would think that would be a good idea.”


	7. Chapter Seven

The next years were a jumble of events: some small, some large, but each one with merit. Toriana had learned to control her power with the help of Ororo, and Tony had told her the identity of her father. Tony had spent an extreme amount of time researching anything and everything about Norse gods around his already busy schedule.  
Toriana had graduated from high school young, two whole years younger than Tony himself, at the tender age of twelve. She had attended university at both MIT and Columbia studying Biology and Chemistry as majors, Engineering and European History as minors. She began researching at Columbia University upon receiving her Doctorates in Biology and Chemistry.  
Though her interest in the field of study she ended up in was something unexpected most who knew of her thought she would follow in Tony’s footsteps and attend MIT alone, be an inventor, and one day take over Stark Industries, and she had agreed with them, that is until she stumbled across a very old worn box tucked away in a closet of Tony’s New York penthouse not too long after he adopted her.  
The penthouse had been the same one that Tony had been raised in and as such, little had been changed over the years beyond upgrading. Tony had even gone so far as to refuse to throw away any of his parents’ things, just storing them in boxes.  
Now, the box that Toriana found wasn’t one of the boxes that Tony had packed, or hired someone to pack after Howard and Maria’s deaths, but a box that Howard Stark had packed many years before. It was in that box that Toriana found her inspiration. In the box were notes, lots of notes all on one subject: a serum. This serum was both famous and obscure. Nearly everyone had heard of what the serum did back in the forties during World War Two, but not many actually knew about the serum itself or believed it truly existed. Toriana had become engrossed in the possibilities of the serum, even more so when she heard of what had happened to some scientists, like Doctor Bruce Banner, when they attempted to recreate it.  
At the time that had to take a back seat to her other studies and her dissertations, and soon enough, it was all but forgotten between classes, and other personal research - along with her occasional tinkering and traveling with Tony - Toriana’s days were busy. She spent her time working on research for a cure cancer, and other diseases, along with more dangerous things like working with Anthrax and its antidotes.  
By seventeen Toriana already had her name on several well-known studies and she had published a few articles for science magazines. She was quite wrapped up in her own life and spent less time with her father and Pepper than she ever had.  
Tony spent his time heading Stark Industries in its many endeavors; while mainly a weapons manufacturer, Stark Industries also worked in the medical field, along with other smaller projects at any given time. Tony created many weapons on his own and designed Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, or JARVIS, an Artificial Intelligence that he had installed in his home.  
Tony spent the majority of his time in Malibu, and Toriana in New York, but the pair always seemed to spend copious amounts of time together despite their individual obligations. Tony and Toriana’s life had become quite routine when Tony was asked to go overseas for a demonstration of the Jericho missile.  
A few days before the weapons demonstration was due to happen Tony went to Las Vegas to accept an award, or he was supposed to be accepting an award; he had instead decided to spend his time in the casino gambling. After Colonel Rhodes, Tony’s best friend Rhodey, tracked him down at the craps table and gave him his award, he was off home with another fling which wasn’t anything new to him.  
The next day Pepper cornered him in his workshop and had him sign a number of forms before shooing him off to the plane and after a quick call to Toriana for luck while he was in the car on the way to the airport, Tony was off on his private jet with Rhodey to the other side of the world.  
A quick convoy brought the men from a military airstrip to what was clearly the Middle-of-Nowhere in the desert to show off the newest missile in the Stark weapons catalogue.  
“Is it better to be feared or respected?” Tony started his speech shifting from food to foot and buttoning his suit jacket, “I say, is it too much to ask for both? With that in mind, I humbly present the crown jewel of Stark Industries’ Freedom line. It is the first missile to incorporate our proprietary repulser technology.” He paused for a breath and shoved his hands in his pockets.  
“They say, the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it, and it’s worked out pretty well so far.” Tony scanned the assembled Military personnel who were gathered, most were watching and listening, but a few seemed to be day dreaming not that Tony could blame them really, the presentation only really mattered to the higher ups and it was getting a bit long winded.  
“Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee you the bad guys won’t even want to come out of their caves.” Tony waved his arm at the missile somewhat dismissively. “For your consideration, the Jericho.”  
Tony raised his arms as the missiles hit the mountains behind him and closed his eyes behind his glasses. Seconds later the dust and wind from the blast whipped through the crowd and knocked him forwards two steps before he could regain his footing.  
Less than an hour later, Tony found himself once again in the convoy, though this time going in the opposite direction. He sat joking with the young soldiers in the Humvee with a glass of whiskey in his hand and thinking about blowing Obadiah off for an extra day to stop in New York for a visit with Toriana, when the unthinkable happened: Tony’s transport was ambushed.  
The first Humvee in the convoy exploded when it ran over a landmine buried in the road that must have been placed after they had entered the demonstration area. The four Humvees following screeched to a halt, all the soldiers poured out into the sand and took aim at the enemy.  
Tony watched as the three soldiers who were in the Humvee with him were shot down and scrambled from the bullet hole ridden vehicle. After stumbling out and watching most of the rest soldiers being shot down Tony scrambled away from the wreckage and hid behind an outcropping of rocks where he came face to face with one of his own weapons.  
Tony didn’t know anything after that for a long while.  
Two hours later, on the other side of the world, Pepper stood with tears pooled in her eyes outside the Starks’ New York penthouse. She had gotten the call about Tony’s disappearance a few hours ago and got herself on the first available flight across the country. She knew she couldn’t let Toriana find out over the phone or on the news, thankfully Toriana was notorious for never watching the news and ignoring her phone for days on end when working. It was a habit she had picked up from her father.  
With a deep breath, Pepper let herself into the apartment with the spare key she carried along with the keys to every other Stark property. Placing her purse on the low table by the door that she left her overnight bag underneath and went straight to the kitchen, leaving the JARVIS to announce her presence to the lone resident of the apartment.  
Toriana was in her lab despite the late hour. She was working away at one project or another, a project that if you asked her later what it was, she wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about.  
“Miss Stark, Ms. Potts is in the kitchen looking for you.” JARVIS’ programmed English accented voice sounded over the speaker system set up throughout the apartment. JARVIS was the only person who called Toriana Stark, her name had never changed from Meijer after the adoption as an extra layer of protection.  
“Do you know why, JARVIS?” Toriana asked with a huff as she glanced around the lab. As far as she knew, there was nothing of note happening then or any time soon for that matter and she was on her way to a break though, she could feel it.  
“No, Miss. Shall I ask her?”  
“No, JARVIS, just let her know I’ll be right there.” She answered while standing from her stool and hunched position over her work. “And tell her not to come to the lab.”  
“Of course, Miss.” JARVIS consented and the lab fell silent once again. Unlike her father, Toriana worked better in the quiet than with music or speaking, so more often than not, she shut herself in a lab with nothing more than her work to keep her occupied.  
After vigorously scrubbing her hands and arms in the lab sink, Toriana ducked from the room and made her way to the kitchen where she could smell a light chocolate-y odor coming from. Pepper stood over the stove grating a block of chocolate into a steaming pot of milk, obviously making hot chocolate. Toriana raised her eyebrows at the woman dressed in a pencil skirt and blouse who was going to town snapping the chocolate bars into small pieces so that they melted faster.  
“Uh, Pepper?” Toriana cleared her throat softly pulling Pepper’s attention away from the slightly melted half gone chocolate.  
“Why are you here-“ Toriana paused and glanced at the pot, “making hot chocolate?”  
Hot chocolate was Toriana’s bad news drink of choice. She drank nothing but hot chocolate after her mother died, three mugs in a row after Pepper told her that Tony wasn’t coming to her high school graduation, and she had drunk twice that when Tony told her he couldn’t attend her first big award ceremony.  
“After we have a drink we can talk, okay?” Pepper didn’t wait for a reply before taking up a whisk and turning from the girl once again.  
Shocked at the abrupt dismissal, Toriana sat silently at the dinette table in the kitchen until Pepper set a steaming mug of chocolate in front of her. Mug in hand, Tori turned to the woman who sat on the second seat. Pepper was clearly worked up about something.  
She looked to have wiped all her make-up off, and her hair was kinked as if it had been in a high pony tail all day only to be tugged out without brushing it. It was then, when she was studying the tall redhead, that Toriana noticed that her shirt was untucked, though clearly it was styled to be tucked in, and there was a small but noticeable smudge of something black on the collar of the shirt. Almost as if Pepper had wiped her mascara off her eyes and then tried to straighten her shirt.  
“Pep-“ Toriana once again tried to start a conversation once again only to be cut off for a second time.  
“Your father is missing.”  
The news was delivered with such monotone that at first Toriana thought that it was a hoax; that Pepper was having her on and Tony was going to walk in any second and announce he was whisking her off to some tropical fantasy land or historical wonder. Yet when the apartment was silent and even waiting a few heart beats didn’t have Tony popping out with an excite yell Toriana began to realize the statements truth.  
“Please tell me you’re joking.” Toriana pleaded.  
“I’m so sorry.” Pepper’s voice cracked as she explained, “After he finished his presentation they were headed back to the air strip when they were attacked by an unknown group. Most of the convoy was destroyed and the personnel were killed. When back up arrived your father was gone.”  
A sob choked pulled out of Toriana’s throat and a slight breeze blew through the room and steadily grew stronger as more sobs were wrenched out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to go a head and apologize for the complete lack of Ororo for the rest of the story. Honestly, I never intended her to be in it, I had a spark of inspiration while editing and didn't realize how much you guys would love the idea of it. Unfortunately, I have the next... seven or so chapters pre-written and I'm disinclined to make such a big change as to add in the X-Men as it would completely change the dynamic of the story. So very sorry to all of you who were rooting for her to become a player, major or otherwise.


	8. Chapter Eight

The three months between Pepper’s announcement in the New York apartment and Tony’s return were the farthest from normal Toriana had ever been. She wasn’t the type to bury herself in work, or throw away opportunities when they presented themselves, but after Tony’s disappearance she had walked away from the research group she had been working with on the project she couldn’t talk about. She refused to go back to Malibu with Pepper when the woman asked, instead holing herself up in her lab with a mixture of old and new research notes.

Days after Tony had disappeared, after Toriana had told her group she could no longer help with the research, she stumbled once again upon the box of research of her grandfather’s. The box had been only three quarters full when she had found it originally, but she had managed to fill the box when she added her own notes from her tests and research in the year or so she had worked with it in college. Three months she spent working on the serum, though mostly theoretically, seeing as she had nothing to test it on because she decided she couldn’t use her own blood as it was meant for humans, not half humans nor did she really want to go looking for the ingredients she would need to recreate it. Many of them, especially bought together, would attract unwanted attention.

One wouldn’t think that Toriana could get much done in three months and one would be right, had Toriana been working her regular hours, or not been so focused on the a single project. In those few months, Toriana had managed to figure out a great portion of the components for the serum, though there were a lot of variables that she didn’t have any ideas about, and create a design for a machine to activate the serum, similar to the one Howard speaks of in his notes that was used to activate the serum in the test subject in 1942.

The notes were impeccably detailed in their own vague way. Howard’s original notes on the serum, subject and machine weren’t in any sort of order, as if he wrote them out after the fact and wrote as he remembered details. The machine was the most described item in the notes. Understandably, given that Howard had designed and built the Vita-Ray emitting device. Even still, the details of the device were interspersed with details about the serums ingredients, the changes seen in the subject and various other things relating to the project.

Toriana spent a good chunk of time just rewriting the notes into manageable sections and legible printing versus the half smeared cramped cursive the original was written in. By the end of it, she had stacks of note books filled with the rewritten notes, along with her own theories on how to enhance the device, components for the serum, and why everything worked the way it did. The time she spent poring over the notes, the little tests she performed and all the research she did meant that she didn’t end up sleeping or eating as much as she should have during those months.

And so, after three months, the Toriana that greeted Pepper at the door was a good ten pounds lighter and her skin a few shades lighter from lack of sunlight than she had been before. Pepper herself was also worse for wear when she arrived at the apartment for the second time in three months. Her clothes were wrinkled from sitting in cars and planes for the better part of the day and her make-up was smudged from wiping her hands on her face. The two women stared at each other in the entry way into the penthouse.

“Tori-“ Pepper started at the same time Toriana began, “Pepp-“ the two both broke off mid word, smiling sheepishly at each other. Toriana waved her hand to signal the elder woman to speak.

“They found him, Toriana.” Pepper announced. “Your father is alive and on his way home.”

Toriana sagged into herself, her already small frame seeming to shrink. “Where was he? Where _is_ he?”

Pepper shook her head and shrugged before tugging the younger woman further into the apartment. The red headed woman led the blonde to the master bedroom where she calmly pulled out an outfit for Toriana. A pair of tailored black dress pants and a loose fitting sheer pink tunic style top were pulled from the large, albeit half empty, closet. A camisole of the same pink tone was pulled free from the chest of drawers along with underthings.

Pepper turned to the blonde girl and took in her appearance with a critical eye. Toriana’s hair was messy, knotted and greasy, tied into a rough bun on the back of her head with several strands hanging free, brushing her shoulders and face. Dark circles hung under blue eyes, thick enough to almost pass for black eyes from punches than a sign of lack of sleep. The girls clothes hung wrinkled and slightly twisted on her body, a men’s shirt so old that the band name could no longer be read from the shirt, a pair of cut off denim shorts, cut off short enough that the front pockets hung from below the tattered edge of the leg. No socks or shoes accompanied the outfit.  Pepper shook her head and pointed to the attached bathroom with one hand while gesturing to the clothing on the bed with the other. “Go clean up, and then put this on. Brush your hair, but I’ll style it and do your make-up. Call me when you are done.”

The red head then left the room without waiting for a reply. Toriana, however, obeyed without question. Tossing herself into the shower almost before the water had a chance to heat up and rushing through washing her hair and body. After the shower she ran a brush through her hair with the realization that it had been at least three days since she had taken the time to do the task and longer still since her last shower. With a grimace she ran a bit of extra leave-in conditioner through her tresses. After dressing she left the bedroom to find Pepper had set up a miniature beauty counter on the dining table, complete with supplies needed to do up Toriana’s hair.

Pepper stood by the single chair that was pulled away from the table waiting, bobby pins and hair clips at the ready. Toriana slumped into the chair and let the woman work. Pepper told the younger woman what she knew of the situation as she worked Toriana’s hair into a neat plait and covered the circles under Toriana’s eyes with concealer.

Five and a half hours later both woman stood on the tarmac of the airport in California waiting for the plane carrying Tony to land. Happy and Pepper were watching the plane come in with a professional calm mask on their faces, not letting their relief at their boss’ return show through; Toriana had no need to hide her relief the airstrip had been closed to civilians and no one in the press had been given any details in regards to the return. She was nearly vibrating with how bad she was shaking watching that plane come to a stop before them.

When the rear hanger doors opened and Cornel Rhodes stood with Tony just beyond them, heavy tears began to roll down not only Toriana’s cheeks, but a few streaked Pepper’s cheeks as well. The elder woman dashed away the tears as quickly as they came and took a deep breath as Tony began to walk from the plane.

Tony descended the ramp from the plane, he sent a way the pair of soldiers with a gurney and came to a stop in front of Pepper. “Your eyes are red, a few tears for your long lost boss?”

 “Tears of joy,” Pepper scoffed lightly. “I hate job hunting.”

Tony half nodded at the read head, “Yeah, vacation’s over.” The dark haired man then makes his way to Toriana who stood quivering halfway between Pepper and Happy, who stood beside the car. Tony didn’t say anything at first, simply holding out the arm that wasn’t in a sling out to the side, offering a hug. Toriana didn’t hesitate to throw herself into her dad’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably into the lapel of his suit jacket.  Father and daughter stand, clinging to one another for a time neither of them were sure of before they righted themselves. “Hey, Tori.” He murmurs softly as he pulls away. “I’m okay, you’re okay. Everything is okay.”

Toriana releases a watery chuckle. “Dad, you are in a sling and you were kidnapped. You are _not_ okay.”

Tony smirked lightly. “Sure I am, kid.”

Toriana rolled her eyes and motioned to the car behind her. Pepper was already inside, the door standing open waiting for Tony and Toriana to get in. Happy stood just behind the door, waiting to close it behind the pair. Tony nodded to the driver with a muttered, “Happy,” in greeting. The second man smiled crookedly and nodded.

The door closed behind Tony, and as the three buckle into their seats, Happy turns to face them from his place behind the wheel. “Where to?”

“Take us to the hospital please, Happy,” Pepper answers only to be contradicted by Tony with a succinct, “no”.

“No? You have to go to the hospital, Tony.” Pepper tells him, swinging her head around to face the man.

A short argument later that ended with Tony announcing; “I don’t have to do anything. I’ve been in captivity for three months. There are two things I want to do; I want an American cheeseburger, and the other,” he paused, only to be interrupted by Pepper’s indignant, “That’s enough of that.”

“Is not what you think. I want you to call for a press conference now.” Tony insisted.

“Call for a press conference?” Pepper questioned the dark haired man before her.

“Why do you need a press conference, dad?” Toriana added.                                                               

Tony didn’t answer the women’s questions, simply ignoring them completely by speaking with Happy. “Hogan, drive. Cheeseburger first.”

The crowd gathered in front the Stark Industries building applauded as Happy pulled up to the curb. Obadiah Stane stepped forward to open the door and let Tony out. Toriana carried Pepper’s things playing the part of her assistant as she had in the past when the three had gone out in public in an official setting.

Inside the atrium of the SI building there was a small stage with a podium and a crowd of reporters from every nearly every news outlet in the US and many from outside the country were gathered to hear what Tony Stark had to say after three months of captivity.

Obadiah got up on stage to introduce Tony while Pepper and Toriana stood near the back of the room, out of range of the video cameras and microphones. Instead of standing behind the podium himself, Tony opted to seat himself in front of it and use it as a back rest while he finished his burger and speak with the press.

“Hey would it be all right if everyone sat down?” Tony asked, “Why don’t you just sit down, that way you can see me, and I can see you. A little less formal.”

Once everyone was seated Tony began quietly addressing Obadiah. “You know, I never got to say goodbye to dad.” And then to the journalists before him, “I never got to say goodbye to my father. There’s questions I would’ve asked him. I would’ve asked him how he felt about what this company did. If he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts. Or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the news reels.”

The room was silent save for the sound of a few camera shutters and pens on paper. Everyone was watching Tony intently as he spoke. “I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is okay with zero accountability.”

A few hands went up in the front row and a few people quietly questioned, “Mr. Stark?”

Tony nodded to a young man in the front row, “Yeah?”

“What happened over there?” He questioned.

“I – uh,” Tony hesitated and stood. He walked around the podium as he continued. “I had my eyes opened. I came to realize that I have more to offer this world then just making things that blow up and that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries –“ All the press and Obadiah jump to stand and begin shouting questions at Tony, “until such a time as I can decide what the future of this company will be,” Obadiah wrapped his arm around Tony’s shoulders and tried to maneuver him away from the podiums microphone, but Tony twisted and continued. “What direction it should take, one that I am comfortable with and is consistent with the highest good for this country as well.”

Obadiah finally shuffled Tony off the stage and announced to the crowd, “What you should take from this is that Tony’s back! And that he’s healthier than ever.”


	9. Chapter 9

The press conference had been a joke. Who the joke was on was debated in the many media outlets that had sent reporters to the conference. Some were saying that Tony Stark had lost his mind in captivity and was throwing away his company; others said he had seen the proverbial light and was mending his ways. Either way; someone was the butt of the joke: Tony himself, or the people who were relying on Stark Industries for their weapons systems. Toriana snorted as she flipped off the report on the television. To her it was easy to see that Tony had never been one hundred percent sane to begin with, so there really wasn’t an argument that he had “lost his mind” in Afghanistan.  Or wherever it was that he ended up. 

Tony had been home a few weeks now, and was, as Toriana had expected, holed up in his lab. Pepper was in the dining room organizing Tony’s life as she did. The scene was far more normal than anyone would say it had right to be. The only thing that didn’t truly fit was Toriana’s presence in the house when normally she would have been in New York.  She had gone back, briefly a few days after Tony’s return to pack up some of her stuff, and pack away the research she was working on so that no one could come across it, should they make it past the security and into the penthouse, not that she expected that to be an issue at all. 

From then on she had barely left what was her childhood home. Today she was curled up on the couch with her laptop, doing as much research as she could manage online, using JARVIS when necessary to get through things like firewalls and password protected sites to get the information she wanted access to that she didn’t have clearance for. 

In the middle of her research, Toriana was vaguely aware of her dad calling Pepper into his lab-meet-garage basement workshop to help him with something, but she didn’t even glance up from her screen until the pair emerged from the lab. 

“Don’t you dare ever ask me to do something like that again!” Pepper nearly screeched.

“What, it wasn’t that bad!” Tony argued as he wiped his hand on a rag, following the red headed woman through the living room and into the dining room. 

Toriana’s eyes followed their movements, her left brow raised curiously. 

“It was that bad. It was worse than that bad, Tony.” Pepper griped.

“Well, you’re all that I have! I mean, I couldn’t have asked Tori to do it!” Tony argued back.

Pepper didn’t reply right away, and when she did, it was muffled by the wall between the arguing pair and Toriana, so the younger didn’t catch what the reply was. Rolling her eyes, she returned to her research, she knew that whatever it was that her dad didn’t want to ask her to do, that Pepper thought was worse than “that bad” probably wasn’t something she wanted to be doing anyway. 

Another few weeks had passed in the same fashion, Tony holed up in his lab, Pepper going back to doing what Pepper did; actually running the company; Toriana finally returned home to New York. 

When Obadiah had need to go to a Board of Directors meeting that was held at the main Stark Building in New York, Toriana went along for the flight before heading off to the penthouse while Obadiah went to the meeting. 

In California, Tony had worked tirelessly on Mark II and had created boots that could create lift, but flight was unstable and nearly uncontrollable. When he decided that he need flight stabilizers, he designed them to fit into the palm of his hands at the end of sleeves to provide extra support, like how he had made flight boots as opposed to flight shoes. Just as he began testing his just finished stabilizer for his right arm, Pepper came into the lab to inform him that Obadiah had returned and was upstairs. 

After successfully shooting himself into a wall while blasting another, Tony pulled himself away from his work to go and speak with Obadiah. The talk didn’t go all that well, it was more of a quiet argument than anything and it left Tony rushing back to his lab to avoid the elder man. The next few days he completed a second stabilizer for his left arm and began testing them once again, though this time with much more success and less full force shots into the concrete walls of the lab.

Toriana, in New York, chose not to return to the research team though she’d been told that she could return at any time she chose, instead choosing to work solely on the project that had taken over her life during her father’s incarceration in Afghanistan.

And while Tony was finding success in his flight gear, Toriana was struggling with the Vita-Ray emitter she was attempting to create. She had figured out that the Vita-Ray was a highly powerful combination of various light rays along with a little bit of various types of radiation. Knowing that, it was easier to understand the accidents that had happened in attempts to recreate the serum in the past. A touch too much Gamma, and the world is saying good bye to Doctor Bruce Banner and hello to the Hulk. 

Toriana and Tony talked for hours on the phone, about nothing and everything. Each was reluctant to speak too openly about the project they were working on, but truly wanted or needed the other’s input to get to the end result they wanted. Tony was brilliant with technology, Toriana was sure that if she gave him Howard’s notes and her own, she would have a Vita-Ray Emitter in no time, but she didn’t want to have the man build it for her, just give her tips on how not to fry herself into the next Red Skull or turn herself into a giant green rage monster. And Tony himself wanted Toriana’s insight on the more biological part of the Arc reactor in his chest, without letting on to how much it could actually hurt him in the long run.

Through subtle comments and questions, both got much of the information they were looking for; all without letting on to what they were working on as Toriana chose to prefer to be ignorant to whatever harebrained scheme her dad had come up with this time. Each one always seemed more ridiculous and farfetched than the last, and Toriana wasn’t going to put herself between her dad and Pepper whenever Pepper inevitably found out. There had been multiple incidents over the years in which Toriana had unwittingly gone along with a plan of Tony’s which resulting in the both of them on the receiving end of Pepper’s wrath. 

Life had seemingly gone back to, at least the Stark equivalent of, normal by the time Tony had been home for two months. Seemingly being the operative word in the previous statement, because looks can be, and often are deceiving. 

Seemingly normal was probably the best way to put what was happening in the two Stark homes. Tony spent his time - the time he was supposed to be lying low for while making the Mark II flight suit and testing it constantly - pushing himself and his technology to the absolute limits. This limit being the height he could fly before he was covered in ice that shut down the suit’s systems, leaving him to free fall back down to earth. 

It was after Tony returned from the test of how high that he overheard a news report about ‘Tony Stark’s Third Annual Benefit for the Fire Fighters Family Fun at the Disney Concert Hall.’ JARVIS confirmed that no invitation to the Benefit had been received while he rendering a composite of what the Mark III would look like when constructed in a gold-titanium alloy when Tony notices the announcement. 

“A little ostentatious, don’t you think?” Tony remarked when the composite was finished. The design was quite similar to the Mark II, with minor changes to the articulation in the smaller joints of the hands and wrists as well as an upgraded power generation unit. The biggest difference visually from the silver-toned Mark II was the bright gleaming golden shade of the alloy. 

“What was I thinking?” The AI replied, “You are usually so discreet.” 

Tony grunted lowly, turning to get something off of his desk behind him when he spotted one of his many cars sitting just beyond the desk. 

“Tell you what; throw a little Hot Rod Red in there.” 

“Yes, that should help you keep a low profile,” The AI remarked before he adjusted the composite to reflect the request. 

Tony left JARVIS to assemble the suit automatically, changed into a tailored suit and left the house to crash his own party. 

Toriana, herself, was fiddling with various liquids in her lab, attempting to recreate the serum. She had seven different versions by the end of those two months. She had decided that the best course of action was to create various versions -all slightly different - of the serum and begin whittling away from the large, rather than putting all her work into one, and risking something being completely wrong and not being able to break down why it went wrong. 

Toriana had also completed a small, very small, working prototype of the Vita-Ray Emitter. While inventing was more her father and grandfather’s forté than hers, Toriana managed just fine to build the small Emitter with the notes that Howard left behind. The things she didn’t know, research online and in other note books from Howard helped clear up. She didn’t expect anything to come of her research; she expected to be stuck with much more trial and error than actual answers to show up. 

As Toriana worked, she had feelers out in various research databanks and on different bio-chemistry forums online to, hopefully, sniff out more leads about components for the serum. A few forums were for things like Doctor Banner’s research with Gamma Radiation and research done in Stem Cells, hoping that they might hold the key. She hadn’t had much luck, but she also wasn’t willing to put too much of her own findings out in case someone happened to figure out what she was working on and perhaps further it without contacting her. 

The knock on the door was a surprise, especially when JARVIS was overridden and the front door opened before Toriana could make the entry way. The woman who stood in the doorway was tall, brunette, and had a no-nonsense look on her face as she gazed at the penthouses tenant. 

“And you are?” Toriana asked mildly, eyeing the woman. 

“Agent Maria Hill of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.” The woman answered stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind her. “Miss Stark, we have much to talk about.”

At the party, Tony was cornered by a reporter that he had met a long while before. She accused him of lying to the population, with the proof of pictures of Stark weapons in the hands of unidentified people taking over a small town called Gulmira. 

Enraged by the sight of the pictures of dead animals and people, of the Jericho Missile he refused to build for the group there anyway, Tony left the party to confront Obadiah on the steps of the building. Tony was left in a state of shock when Obadiah, the man he had known his whole life, was the one to file an injunction to lock him out of his own company; the one to deal under the table with terrorists for years without Tony ever suspecting a thing. 

Anger fueled even further, Tony returned home just long enough to don the newly finished Mark III suit and take off headed towards Afghanistan. 

 


	10. Chapter Ten

The S.H.I.E.L.D. Base in New York that Agent Hill took Toriana was located underground, beneath two city blocks of Manhattan. The seven floors of the Base were split up between Research and Development Labs, office space, storage space and training space for the newer recruits. Toriana had been led from the Stark Penthouse and into a blacked out car. She was sure it had driven in circles before pulling into an underground parking garage.  From the garage, she was shuffled by Agent Hill and four other black-clad agents who joined them in the car into a stainless steel lined elevator that carried them down to the second-to-last floor.

Stepping out of the elevator, Maria led Toriana down a long corridor lined with windows and doors that led into labs that were decked out in the best equipment possible for whatever was being worked on in each room. The labs that were passed contained mostly chemical labs, so for as much as there was to be seen, nothing was obvious enough to actually tell what was being worked on in the labs. There were a multitude of people in the rooms, all dressed in what had to be issued outfits of white lab coats and black slacks, white button-ups could be seen poking out of the coats and most people were even wearing ties as well.

Toriana followed the agents silently, barely holding onto her self-control to not roll her eyes at the theatrics, as if catching glimpses of the labs would have an effect on whether she would say yes or no to whatever it was they were going to ask her when they got where they were going. For all Toriana knew, the labs were being faked, the equipment not in working condition and only had people in them for her benefit; how would she really know?

As she walked Toriana, thought of the scene Agent Hill made in the apartment.

_The knock on the door was a surprise, especially when JARVIS was overridden and the front door opened before Toriana could make the entry way. The woman who stood in the doorway was tall, brunette, and had a no-nonsense look on her face as she gazed at the penthouses tenant._

_“And you are?” Toriana asked mildly, eyeing the woman._

_“Agent Maria Hill of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.” The woman answered stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind her. “Miss Stark, we have much to talk about.”_

_Rolling her eyes at the woman, “Please, do come in.” Toriana led the woman into the dining room and gestured for her to sit at the table while taking a seat herself pulling one foot up to rest on the seat of the chair. “And what does the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division want with me?”_

_“We know what you’ve been working on, Miss Stark.” The agent told her point blank._

_“It’s Doctor Meijer, actually, and I haven’t a clue what you are talking about, I’ve not been working on anything since my father went missing and I left the research group I was a part of.” Toriana straightened in her seat, her foot dropping to the floor and raising her chin defiantly, as if daring the Agent to question her._

_“I assure you,_ Doctor Meijer _that we at the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division know what you’ve been working on.” The agent’s emphasis on her name and title was laced with sarcasm, proving that she didn’t truly believe Toriana. Perhaps about her last name, or about her title, either way though, it didn’t make a difference the scorn the other woman felt for Toriana was obvious. “The Director has a proposition for you; he’d like to meet you.”_

_Toriana and Agent Hill spent nearly an hour going back and forth at Toriana’s dining table before Agent Hill managed to coerce the girl into meeting with Director Fury at a Base in Manhattan._

When the group came to a halt in front of a lab door just like every lab door that they had already passed except for the small blind on the bad blocking the window Agent Hill gestured for Toriana to open the door and enter. The younger woman rolled her eyes at the elder and pushed her way into the room and let the door close behind her with a clunk.

State of the art equipment was spread out around the room, desks and tables stacked with packages of fresh vials, petri dishes, pipets and test tubes. The room was spacious, the large tables surrounded by open walkways. The air smelt of disinfectant and was cool from the air conditioner that was humming quietly in the background.

A man dressed entirely in black, black cargo pants, a black leather jacket that hung down passed his knees with a black turtle neck underneath, stood against the blank back wall of the laboratory. The man’s dark skin was scarred around a leather eye patch that covered his left eye, though smooth everywhere else that was visible. His head was shaved bald but he had a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee.

Agent Hill pushed into the room with a scowl on her face and sneered lightly at Toriana at the door closed behind her.

“Welcome to the _Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,_ Doctor Stark.” The man, clearly Director Fury, announced as soon as the door fell closed behind Agent Hill. “My name is Nick Fury, and I am the Director of this operation. What do you think of our facilities?”

Toriana threw her gaze around the room once more, taking note of the high end logos on the product packaging and equipment. The stainless steel tabletops gleamed in the artificial light. Most of it was the same, or equivalent to what she had in her home lab. “It’s not bad, no better than my lab at home though. And my name is Meijer, not Stark. He may have adopted me, but I never changed my name.”

Fury nodded his head in acceptance without comment, “Though here you would have access to more than just what you see. There are databases of information that you wouldn’t have been able to access before and as many lab techs at your disposal for help with your experiments.”

“And if I prefer to work alone?” Toriana raised a brow and tilted her chin to the side.

“Then the lab is yours alone.” Fury raised his hands in a half shrug. “There’s no reason for you to work along except preference, but if you choose to do so, you can.”

Toriana turned from the man and walked through the room contemplatively, running her fingertips over the counters. “You would provide me with any materials I deem necessary to my work?”

“Of course, Doctor.” Fury assured her.

“And who would have access to my work?” She didn’t face him when she asked, busy inspecting one of the many boxes on the table nearest to her.

“You, me, and anyone you deem necessary.” The man answered. “Unless you are working on an assignment, in which case the access will be to anyone who is granted authorization.” Fury walked closer to Toriana, his single eye focused intently on her. “You will be given a server to work on while here you are here, encrypted and password protected. With a password of your choice, of course.”

“And I can grant access to as much or as little of my research as I choose.” Toriana bargained. “Accept that and you have yourself a deal.”

“We haven’t discussed salary yet.” Fury reminded her.

“My father is Tony Stark. I’m not worried about the money.” Toriana deadpanned.

“Then welcome to the team, Doctor.” Fury replied while holding out his right hand to shake.

Toriana shook the man’s hand. “It seems we do.”

Working with S.H.I.E.L.D. came with a contract that was seemingly a mile long that required so many places to be initialed or signed that by the end Toriana joked that her hand had gone numb somewhere around the middle. Once she finished signing her life away she was given access to a private server to store her work and keys to the lab that she first met Director Fury in and access codes to enter the underground structure and start the elevator.

Over the following weeks she made leaps and bounds in her research with the unrestrained access to the information databases that she had previously had to skulk around in discreetly. Despite the advances she made, there were so many possibilities and variables that there were still years of work to be done.

Toriana had been working at S.H.I.E.L.D. for two months when the portable JARVIS she had installed on her Stark Phone pulled her out of her work with a news report from a Stark Industries warehouse in California.

The projected screen from the phone glowed blue slightly as it showed footage of the Arc Reactor building, first with the glass shattering and figures visible on the roof and then with the reactor itself exploding. A blue banner ran across the bottom of the screen declaring “Stark Industries Building Explodes After Robotic Prototype Malfunctions.”

After a few run-throughs of the footage that was taken last night the report shifts to a news anchor who announces that they are going to go live to a press conference held by Colonel James Rhodes of the U.S. Air Force. Toriana shifted her stance to lean against the table behind her as the anchor continued to speculate on the events at the warehouse and what will be said at the press conference.

When the scene changed for a third time it came up on Rhodey standing behind a podium looking out over a large crowd of finely dressed men and women, each holding note books, recorders or cameras.

“You all have received the official statement of what occurred at Stark Industries last night.” Rhodes announces to the press. The man glances between the podium and the crowd, making eye contact with the cameras that dotted the edges of the crowd.

“There have been unconfirmed reports of a robotic prototype malfunctioned and caused damage to the arc reactor.” He paused and looked down at his notes closely for a moment. “This is true; fortunately a member of Tony Stark’s personal security was able to confine the damage to a small area using another robotic prototype.” Rhodes let little emotion into his voice as he went through the speech he wrote earlier that day and waited patiently for Tony to come out and say his piece. “At this time it is confirmed that the malfunctioning unit was destroyed in the blast from the Arc Reactor exploding.”

Toriana huffed out a breath and let her head drop back to look at the ceiling above her. _There is no way that dad didn’t have anything to do with that. No way._ Shaking herself when the reporters began to talk over each other to try and get their questions answered. Facing the screen she could see Tony walking up the center aisle to the podium where Rhodey still stood. When Tony got to the stage Rhodes clapped his shoulder and told the crowd, “Mr. Stark will be giving a statement, but not taking any questions at this time.” before stepping out of the way so that Tony could take his place behind the podium.

“Uh, it’s been a while since I’ve been in front of you, so I figure I’ll stick to the cards this time.” The aforementioned man half-mumbles to the microphone while pulling a set of blue cue cards from the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket. Tony pauses to shuffle the cards slightly while the assembled men and women chuckle.

“There’s been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and the roof top.” Tony began.

From near the front of the crowd a woman’s hand shot up and was quickly followed by a voice. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit? That conveniently appeared, despite the fact that-“

“I know that it’s confusing, one thing to question the official story and another entirely to make wild accusations or insinuate that I am superhero.” Tony cut in over the reporter’s voice.

“I never said you were a superhero.” The woman stated succinctly.

“Didn’t you?” Tony asked, surprised, but the reporter just shook her head jauntily back and forth. “Well good, because that would be outlandish and, uh, fantastic.” Tony tensed as he looked down at the cards to see what he was supposed to be reading from, his body language showing just how uncomfortable he was with the whole thing he was. “I-I’m just not the hero type. Clearly. With this laundry list of character defects, the mistakes I’ve made, largely public.” He stumbled over the beginning of what was clearly still not what was written for him to be saying. Toriana could practically hear Pepper shaking her head and whispering for Tony to _“Just read the cards!”_ from where ever she was off camera.

Colonel Rhodes leaned over to his longtime friend and whispered into Tony’s ear, clearly telling him to just read the cards and finish. Once he had leaned back out of Tony’s personal space, Tony pulled the blue papers up into his light of sight once again and seemed to start with what was written finally, “The truth is-“ but his voice trailed off before finishing the sentence. The dark haired man stared hard at the cards for a moment he looked over the crowd and cameras before stating exactly what the cards didn’t have written on them. “I am Iron Man.”

The reporters are immediately out of their seats and surging towards the stage shouting question after question at the billionaire.

Toriana watched as the Colonel tensed and grabbed Tony by his shoulders to haul him out of the large room and away from the prying eyes of the cameras. Smirking to herself lightly Toriana felt smug that she had called the lie for what it obviously was. All that she really wanted to know now was what – who – exactly Tony was fighting on the roof last night.


	11. Chapter Eleven

A flight from LaGuardia to LAX wasn’t hard to come by, so within a short few hours Toriana found herself on a plane at thirty thousand feet. The five and a half hour flight wasn’t the most entertaining thing, but Toriana passed the time listening to music and playing solitaire on her phone, all the while trying to figure out possible explanations for what happened with her dad on that roof top, there was no way it was anything like what the press conference said, even with it being Tony himself on the roof rather than a body guard.   
Lost in her own thoughts the flight passed quickly and before Toriana realized what was happening a flight attendant was tapping her on the shoulder to inform her that they’d be landing in a few minutes and asking if she could kindly return her seat to an upright position and lock her tray table up. With a bright smile at the attendant Toriana did as asked and stowed her phone away in her carry-on bag before settling into her seat to await the landing.   
The airport, while busy wasn’t nearly as difficult to navigate as it could have been, so it didn’t take Toriana long to locate her bags and acquire a car to take her to the beachfront home. The house looked mostly the same, there was a stack of concrete rubble off to one side of the garage door that Toriana couldn’t place the colour of, but she chose to ignore it while she hauled her suitcase into the entry way of her childhood home.   
“Dad! Are you here?” She hollered through the house.   
“Your father is in his workshop, Miss Stark.” JARVIS’s synthetic English accented voice filled the room.  
“Thank you JARVIS. Please inform him I am here and that dinner will be in an hour.” Toriana told the AI as she settled her bags down beside the stairs. Heading into the kitchen as JARVIS confirmed that he had told Tony about the dinner plans. The kitchen, while stocked well with basics like canned goods and dry ingredients, was woefully under stocked on fresh items like fruits, vegetables and milk. Rolling her eyes at her father’s negligence, she had JARVIS keep a list of items that should have been in the house but weren’t while she pulled out the fixings for an easy pasta dish.   
Dinner was made quickly, and a rather sheepish looking Tony, grease-stained, scraped and bruised, joined Toriana in the kitchen. “Hey, Tor.”   
“Hi, dad.” Toriana responded while handing the man a plate of bowtie alfredo. “So, shall we eat then talk, or talk while we eat?”  
Tony gave the young woman a dirty look. “I don’t have to tell you anything, you know.”  
“I could ask JARVIS, or hack your personal server, but that would be a bit extreme for a ‘robotic prototype malfunction’, wouldn’t you think?”  
Tony snorted, “I never should have taught you that.”  
“Please, I would have taught myself anyway.” Toriana laughed. “You showing me only meant that there were no arrests along the way.”  
Tony laughed brightly, “You always were one to act first, think later.”   
“Like you are one to talk!” Toriana pointed out.   
Tony shrugged unrepentantly and agreed. “Yes, but this is a matter of do as I say, not as I do.”  
“Well that’s no fun.” Toriana responded. “Now stop deflecting and tell me what is going on.”   
Tony sighed again and took a bite of pasta to delay the inevitable just that little bit longer. “You know about my reactor,” Tony started. “I had the idea for a flight suit, so I built one. Then I heard that someone in Stark Industries was dealing under the table with the terrorists that held me captive. So I went and took out their stash.” Once tony began speaking, the story of how he had discovered Obadiah’s deceit and how Obadiah had left him for dead in the living room after paralyzing him with his own invention and taking the Arc Reactor from his chest.   
He spoke of crawling his way down stairs to try and get the original reactor that Pepper had had put into a display box and failing even after Dum-E took the case from the desk and handed it to him. He told her about how Rhodey had come and saved him by putting the reactor in.   
By this time they had abandoned their dinner and relocated to the living room, each curled up on the couch. Toriana and Tony had started curled on either end facing each other, but as Tony spoke Toriana slowly crept forwards until she was curled into Tony’s chest as he had often held her as a child.  
Tony clung to his daughter as he told her about going to the Arc Reactor Warehouse and finding that Pepper was there with a group of Agents and knowing that they wouldn’t be enough to stop Obadiah if he didn’t get there in time. He spoke of the flight chase and leading Obadiah’s crude version of his suit higher and higher until it froze and shut down.   
Toriana wrapped herself around Tony as tight as she could without cutting off blood flow or oxygen when Tony told her of the fight on the roof, of Obadiah shooting at him and him ordering Pepper to overload the reactor. Tony didn’t have to tell her that flipping the switches would overload the Reactor, she had spent enough time around the company to know at least something about everything that they were working on at any given time. He also didn’t have to tell her that Tony was willing to sacrifice himself in an explosion to stop Obadiah from escaping from there with the weapon he had created.   
Tears streamed down Toriana’s face and prickled at Tony’s eyes when he told her how relieved he was that the suit had protected him from the blast while Obadiah had fallen into the reactor and caused the whole thing to blow. The two sat in silence when Tony was finished with his story. Neither had words to explain their thoughts or feelings on the events that had happened, though neither thought words were necessary in that moment as they held each other.   
A month and a half passed before Toriana forced herself to go back to New York. She had received phone calls from Agent Hill and Fury over the last week and knew that soon enough they would stop being kind about it. And while Toriana had never been explicitly told that Tony couldn’t know she worked for S.H.E.I.L.D., they had made it pretty clear that he shouldn’t if it could be avoided. Case in point was that even though she knew Agent Phil Coulson, he never acknowledged her presence the few times they had run into each other while he was trying to get a meeting with Tony in.   
The first year after the fight with Obadiah, who the media had been told was killed in a plane crash just off the coast of China, the wreckage unsalvageable, Tony and Toriana’s lives went on much as they always had. Tony continued to remove the production of weaponry while steadily making plans for armor and shields for the military instead, along with tracking systems and software. Stark Industries funds began going further into medical research and peace keeping missions around the world. Toriana diligently worked at the serum, though she had more written into the column of “not possible components” than what could possibly be in it.   
After months of no new breakthroughs or epiphanies regarding the serum Toriana began delving into the research of other scientists to see what they had already done and eliminated as possibilities. She knew right off the bat that the Gamma radiation that Doctor Banner had used was not correct, but she could see why it had been considered, she admitted that had she not had Howard’s notes on the Vita-Ray emitter she would have likely started with Gamma radiation herself. It was a seemingly viable option that Stark had a hand in developing it into a useable radiation in the 40’s. Getting her hands on Doctor Banner’s notes would go a long way in furthering her research, but even S.H.E.I.L.D. couldn’t do everything no matter what they claimed.   
Tony and Toriana continued to regularly call to check in with each other, but rarely did they stray onto the topic of work and on the few occasions that they did, Tony would blabber on about whatever body armor he was developing or the latest updates he’d made to JARVIS, while Toriana would talk about the annoying red tape keeping her from research she’d been trying to access to without letting slip what research she was trying to access or about whatever small project S.H.E.I.L.D. had come up with for her to do.   
It was a year and a half after the incident with Obadiah that found Toriana sitting on a wrought iron chair outside of a small café near the entrance to the S.H.E.I.L.D. Base when she saw an article in the New York Times that caught her attention. At first she had played off the picture of her father on the page as something to do with the company because of the change in production, but on a second glance she read the title. Tony Stark; Losing His Cool After Nearly Destroying Stark Industries? Rising from her seat she dropped money on her table for the meal she’d been eating and quickly left to find a copy of the newspaper for herself.   
The article turned out to be about Tony’s recent stint in Las Vegas casinos and the public intoxication arrests that went with it; a thousand words detailing all the scandalous events around Tony’s weeklong visit to the city of sin. After reading the article Toriana tore through the city to return to her apartment and immediately sent JARVIS hunting through the internet for any more articles like the one she had just read from the last year.  
There were small articles from London and Paris about extravagant parties Tony threw at local night clubs, but neither article mentioned anything other than the regular for Tony’s last minute parties. Neither party made the news outside of the city they happened in. There were also articles about the Iron Man showing up in newspapers around the world for deeds done, small and large.   
Relaxing a bit after her search, Toriana concluded that Tony had simply had a large let loose in Vegas and it was a onetime deal. She didn’t feel the need to call Tony on his party, she was his daughter, not his mother, but even still, she left JARVIS with instructions to keep an eye on what was being said about Tony in newspapers around the world and to let her know if anything big happened.   
Three more months passed, now twenty one months after the fight at Stark Industries JARVIS interrupted her while she was working on a new possible combination for the serum based off of another scientist’s work and the knowledge she’d gained on the subject over the years.   
“Miss Meijer, I have compiled a list of articles regarding Mr. Stark as you asked.” The Artificial Intelligence’s voice sounded from the tablet she was recording her data on.   
“And what of it?” Toriana asked, only half listening as she continued her calculations.  
“I believe you will wish to read them.” JARVIS commented.  
“Very well,” Toriana conceded and made quick work of saving what she’d already finished and opening a new folder that appeared on her desktop labeled “Requested Articles”. Inside the folder were more than a dozen individual files each labeled by a date beginning nine months after the Stark industries fight.   
The first five were before the articles from London and Paris that Toriana found; two from Malibu, one from Reno, as well as two from Toronto Ontario. Each was the same M.O. as the London and Paris articles, large last minute parties at local clubs and restaurants that resulted in Tony spending far too much money, but nothing truly out of the ordinary for the man in question. Then JARVIS had copies of both the London and Paris articles. Dated between Paris and Tony’s Vegas week was an article from a small paper in Belgium detailing a large party that went beyond what was normal as several guests were arrested for public intoxication and nudity as well as possession of various drugs.  
Tony’s Vegas week was nearly two weeks after the Belgium party and after it there was nearly a month of inactivity for Tony in the papers. JARVIS informed Toriana that Tony had spent much of the month long absence holed up in his lab at the Malibu house working on a project that Tony hadn’t given Toriana clearance to access. Scowling at this news she continued through the articles.  
Each consecutive article detailed more out of control nights that were getting closer and closer together. Tony himself had been arrested for public intoxication twice, belligerent behavior three times and had been detained over night for a week’s worth of nights over the last month and a half. Finishing the final article, one about how Tony had taken over the SI racecar in Monaco and ended up fighting a Russian national on the track. Toriana disregarded Tony’s security protocols on his latest projects and began sifting through notes for the Iron Man suits, ideas for various Stark Industries projects, paperwork for Stark Industries and found coded file hidden within a protected file on the Iron Man suits about Palladium poisoning.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all, a bit of background info, this takes place pre-Iron Man (movie one). Toriana’s father is important to the story, and brownie points to anyone who can figure it out. Her name is a dead giveaway. The first chapter is 2,572 words long, minus the authors’ notes. Reviews are not only loved, they are needed. I can’t know if you like the story if you don’t tell me. Side note, I’m not sure if this will be slash in the future, it might, we just have to wait and see.  
> Disclaimer: I do not own anything except Toriana and her mother and whatever else you do not recognize from the movies. I am making no money from this, it is only for pleasure.


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